Oops:
The New York Times reported on Saturday that Apple (AAPL: 583.98, -19.02, -3.15%) lowers its tax bill with various tax moves that involve using offices in lower tax regimes.
Using analysis from a former Treasury economist, the New York Times reported that Apple “paid cash taxes of $3.3 billion around the world on its reported profits of $34.2 billion last year, a tax rate of 9.8%.”
The article goes on to say that Apple’s federal tax bill likely would have been $2.4 billion higher last year without these moves.
But using Apple’s corporate accounting profit to arrive at its effective global rate of 9.8% is dubious because profit figures are different numbers versus the taxable income figures companies report to the Internal Revenue Service.
A look at Apple’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows the more appropriate effective rate for Apple is likely more than double the 9.8% effective rate the Times reported.
Apple already reports in its filings that its global effective rate for both 2011 and 2010 is 24%, and its effective U.S. federal rate is likely 20.1%. Moreover, its global effective rate for 2009 was 31.8%
The rest here.