Apple join Britain's growing list of US tax-avoiders

Software giant Apple is among several American multinational companies pinpointed by the Guardian newspaper as avoiding paying the full amount of tax. Despite generating more than $36 billion in overseas profit in 2012, Apple paid less than 2% tax on that figure.


According to the Guardian:

The iPhone and iPad-maker paid $713m (£445m) in overseas corporation tax on foreign profits of $36.87bn (£23bn) in the year to the end of September. That translates as a tax rate of 1.9%, compared to a headline corporation tax rate of 35% in the US and 24% in the UK. The details were revealed in Apple's 10K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Though it is highly doubted that Apple are doing anything illegal with their tax payments to the UK, this new information adds to the growing clamour that several US conglomerates should "pay-up" and help towards the British deficit. Google, Amazon and Starbucks have all been accused of using tax havens, such as Ireland, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Margaret Hodge, who chairs the parliamentary committee on public accounts, said: "We want to ask them for an opportunity to explain why they don't pay proper levels of tax in the UK."

Prime minister David Cameron has said he is "not happy with the current situation" of Apple, Google, Facebook, eBay and Starbucks avoiding a collective of nearly £900m of tax.