Americans Are Paying Apple Millions to Shelter Overseas Profits

…by loaning those profits to the US Treasury.
Bloomberg: 

Taking advantage of an exemption tucked into America’s Byzantine tax code, Apple stashed much of its foreign earnings—tax-free—right here in the U.S., in part by purchasing government bonds, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. In return, the Treasury Department paid Apple at least $600 million and possibly much more over the past five years in the form of interest, a Bloomberg review of its regulatory filings shows.

The article clearly states that Apple is only one of many internationals that take advantage of this.  It seems they are more forthcoming about it than most of the others and for that they get to be the one taken to task.
Apple is no more to blame here than I am for deducting my mortgage interest and making the rest of you make up the difference. 

The current exemption, spelled out in Section 956(c)(2) of the U.S. tax code, has been in place since 1962. But over the past two decades, global companies (particularly in technology and pharmaceuticals) began to use it aggressively as one way to reduce the tax bill on their burgeoning overseas profits. It states companies can repatriate income without paying a penny in taxes—as long as it is used to buy Treasuries or other U.S. securities like stocks and corporate bonds.

Any business with foreign earnings can take advantage, to the government’s benefit, but if they use the money for any other purpose, say investment in new jobs, they get hit with the third largest corporate tax rate in the world. 

What would you do in their shoes? (Clue, did you take a deduction for real estate taxes or charitable donations, or maybe invest in munis, thereby shifting some of your tax burden to the rest of us? You cad!)

Sure, the loophole probably shouldn’t be there but there shouldn’t be such a big incentive to keep the money offshore in the first place.