How Apple takes a huge bite out of its tax bill

Forget sweatshops in China. Apple has another PR hit to worry about: fallout from the weekend’s New York Times piece about how it avoids billions of dollars in taxes by setting up offices for tax avoidance purposes in tax havens around the world. Case in point: Apple’s office in Reno, where it ostensibly collects and invests the company’s profits, and which helps the Cupertino-based company avoid millions in California taxes, since California’s corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent and Nevada’s is zero. An excerpt:

Setting up an office in Reno is just one of many legal methods Apple uses to reduce its worldwide tax bill by billions of dollars each year. As it has in Nevada, Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places like Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands — some little more than a letterbox or an anonymous office — that help cut the taxes it pays around the world.