If the Daily Mail is to be believed, Apple only paid a meager £10 million in taxes ($16 million dollars) in taxes in the UK, while their earnings were estimated at £6 billion over the same period, leading to accusations of it avoiding UK tax.
In addition to this, Apple run a lot of their European operation out of an industrial estate in Cork, Ireland which has an ultra low rate of corporation tax. At 12.5%, it is half of the 24% rate in the UK.
Documents from one of its two main UK divisions, Apple Retail UK Ltd, show it paid tax of just £3.79million on sales of more than £500million in the year to September 2010, the latest accounts available. Another subsidiary, Apple (UK) Ltd, paid £6.1million in tax on sales of just under £69million.
Apple are not the first high-profile company to be attacked for tax avoidance, with Amazon and Google also being heavily criticized.
