Despite workarounds, Apple still paid $6 billion in U.S. taxes last year

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Earlier this year, The New York Times wrote a piece on the different methods Apple uses to sidestep “billions in corporate taxes.” Like other articles in the publication’s iEconomy series, it painted the Cupertino company in a not-so-favorable light.

But despite the workarounds, Apple says it still pays a significant amount in income taxes. According to a recent statement, it paid over $6 billion in US taxes during its fiscal 2012, accounting for $1 out of every $40 collected from corporations…

Congressional investigators are finishing their probe into the accounting practices of Apple and other tech companies that involves allocating revenue and intellectual property offshore to avoid paying often-higher US state and federal income taxes.

The Times reports:

“In its statement, Apple said it paid “an enormous amount of taxes” to local, state and federal governments. “In fiscal 2012 we paid $6 billion in federal corporate income taxes, which is 1 out of every 40 dollars in corporate income taxes collected by the U.S. government,” it said.”

But while $6 billion is a huge number, it’s only a fraction of the taxes Apple would be paying if it wasn’t so good at avoiding them. It’s believed that the company has found legal ways to allocate about 70% of its profits overseas, where taxes are much lower.

And it’s found ways to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes here in the US as well. More recently, it’s begun re-routing its revenue through offices in Reno, because California taxes corporations around 8%, and Nevada charges 0%. Pretty smart huh?

Apple’s certainly not the only one doing this — almost every company does. But because of its success, it’s a much bigger target. And although it’s legal, I cringe every time I think how much better our economy would be if everyone paid all of their taxes.

What do you think about all of this?