The only purpose of Aggressive tax planning is the reduction
of tax liabilities. To make a long story short - it is about exploiting and overstrain one system or more systems by outplaying one against the other.
Apples tax planning is no more “aggressive” than a person not taking money out of a retirement account. The US allows taxes to be deferred (not avoided, deferred) on foreign earnings until they are brought back in the US. That’s all Apple is doing, parking their after tax foreign profits in the cheapest location possible until the US fixes its awful tax code.
Sorry, but we are talking about evading tax in europe and that apple and many other big corps are doing this with aggressive tax planning is an undeniable and occupied fact.
No offense, but you just try to "wash out" the discussion in the "whole tread" with the same generalized arguments over and over again - by simply deny the fact.
Explain then how they are "evading" tax? Every explanation attempted ends up back at "well what they are doing is legal, but they should voluntarily pay more". Just like the linked editorial.
Apple actually has a large reserve for taxes it owes when it repatriates it's foreign profits. It's choosing to legally defer that tax by waiting, just like a private citizen defers taxes by not selling profitable stocks before the end of the year, or by keeping money in their 401K instead of withdrawing it.
Deferral isn't evasion. It's an important legal part of the tax system to incentivize savings.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/55877...
How agressive tax planning works:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2015/56344...
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/r...