Cook defends use of offshore tax shelter

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has defended his company’s use of offshore tax shelters before US senators who castigated the most-valuable technology company for avoiding $9bn and more in payments.

“We pay all the taxes we owe — every single dollar,” Cook said in testimony yesterday to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “We not only comply with the laws, we comply with the spirit of the laws.”

Senator Carl Levin used the hearing to say Apple used “loopholes” to avoid paying $9bn (€7bn) in US taxes in 2012.