Apple paid no UK corporation tax in 2012

Apple did not pay UK corporation tax last year, according to its latest filings, which are likely to underline the controversy over the US tech giant’s tax planning.

In May, a US Senate committee highlighted Apple’s overseas tax rate of less than 2 percent, which it said reflected its ability to shift profits into Ireland. Tax deductions from share awards to employees helped wipe out the corporate tax liabilities of the UK subsidiaries in the year to September 2012. In the previous year, the tax reported by the UK subsidiaries was £11.4 million. Apple’s tax affairs became the focus of global scrutiny in May after the US Senate Committee accused Apple of avoiding $10 billion of US tax a year. It said the company “left very small earnings, and correspondingly small tax liabilities, in countries around the world” because the economic rights to the goods it sold were held in Ireland.