A Bite Of The Apple

David Horsey took a look at the recent news about Apple's tax avoidance scheme and came to some pretty solid conclusions.

Apple, America’s richest, most innovative consumer technology company, is also the most creative in hiding billions of dollars in profits from the taxman, according to congressional investigators. But on Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed out that his company’s creative tax sheltering, far from being illegal, is made possible by the loophole-ridden tax laws of the United States.

Cook told the senators that Apple paid a $6-billion tax bill to the federal government last year. Not only does Apple pay everything owed to the IRS, Cook said, the company does not employ gimmicks to avoid required tax payments. ...

...it is preposterous to think the current dyspeptic Congress will get past its dysfunction and find common ground on the best way to reform the tax code. Too much ideology and too many lobbyists stand in the way. As a result, Apple and every other American corporation will continue to slip through the gaps in the outmoded law with big bags of cash bound for foreign lands.  [Emphasis added]

In other words, what Apple did was perfectly legal.  And it will continue to be able to shelter those billions because there is no way that this Congress (and perhaps any other Congress) will do anything about it.  The money being thrown around by lobbyists and campaign contributors will see to that.

And that's the shame of it all.