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As much as I hate apple - you do know that it is a multinational company's _responsibility_ to legally minimize its tax.
The responsibility of directors according to the companys act 2013 is to:
* to act in good faith in order to promote the objects of the company
for the benefit of its members as a whole;
* to act in the best interest of the company, its employees,
shareholders, community and for the protection of environment;
Note that Apple sells to many different markets and not all its shareholders are American. It has to act in the best interest of its self and its shareholders.
This means managing capital effectively and minimizing losses to entities that don't provide the best value-for-money benefit to the company or its shareholders. IE. Paying taxes to foreign and domestic states & governments. From the perspective of the company, it should be returning those profits back to shareholders, who then pay their income taxes in whatever jurisdictions they live in.
This doesn't mean they should break the law or "avoid" taxes, but if the government shuts down one legal tax shelter and leaves another legal tax shelter open; it is the company's responsibility to move financial operations to that other legal tax shelter.
I can't find the talk, but I heard Bill Gates talking about this and he said - Multinational Companies should pay their fair share of tax, but it's bad corporate governance to be paying more tax than you legally have to. It's up to governments to change the laws so they collect a fair share of taxes from multinational companies. It's up to multinational companies to abide by those laws.
But poo-pooing apple because "We closed one legal loophole and they found another legal loophole" is nothing more than a beat-up.
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