Apple and other left-coast tech giants are some of the biggest winners in the GOP tax bill Congress passed today. For over a decade, these companies have hoarded their overseas profits, waiting for Washington to deliver a tax holiday like the last one in 2004. It was a good bet, as the legislation lets them repatriate those profits at a one-time rate of 15.5 percent — far lower than the 35 percent they were supposed to pay.

Apple, with over $250 billion parked offshore, will enjoy a $47 billion windfall. It will be a green Christmas in Cupertino indeed.

This was all part of the plan. Early last month, the New York Times and the Guardian alerted their readers to a blockbuster Paradise Papers story: Apple had been caught tax dodging again. When the European Union disrupted the company’s Irish tax shelter in 2013, it went shopping for a new offshore haven, eventually settling on Jersey, a tiny British dominion in the English Channel. The Times headline in print was unsparing: “Island Hopping Saved Apple Billions in Taxes.”