A deduction is already in the law. While that doesn't necessarily make it right, I'm not bastardizing our democracy by dumping a pile of money on some lobbyist attack dog outfit to get the deck stacked in my favor, at the expense of the taxpaying public. It's ok to seek advantage, within the law and also within some sense of reason and decency. Apple claims this tax break is reasonable and decent, but a basic examination of their motives as a corporation easily exposes that hypocrisy.
First off, they are NOT using existing deductions and IRS rules, they are trying to get the rules changed to favor them and their friends. Secondly, I made it pretty clear what I meant by dodging taxes, regardless of what the term connotes to you. Since you seem to prefer your own meaning of the term, I will re-state the essence of the point: they are trying to get out of paying the amount of tax that is legally required of them, and the methods that they are using to do that, while legal, are no less repugnant or morally objectionable for that fact. Please refer to my earlier statement which is essentially this: just because something is legal in America does not mean it is right.
Consider this: It's legal for a corporation to take out a life insurance policy on a terminally ill employee, without notifying that employee's spouse. Furthermore, when that employee dies, it is legal (and very common) for that corporation to cash the insurance check and not turn over a single penny to the widow. Does that strike you as right? No? Well, too bad, because it's legal. And guess who gets to make those laws? Corporations and their lobbyists, with a compliant Congress. You're free to think that's alright, but to suggest that I'm being reckless with someone else's money because I'm tired of watching them use it to enrich themselves at the expense of this country - that seems an awful lot like throwing around words.
