Unless Apple's a benefit corporation, it's only responsiblity to share holders is long and short term profit. I distinguish between the two to make the point that it shouldn't break laws or go out if business because that hurts long term profits, it also should avoid taxes it can, and pay all taxes it can't avoid to maximize short term profits, and minimize longer term tax penalties.
Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 170 N.W. 668, 684 (Mich. 1919)
> A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end. The discretion of directors is to be exercised in the choice of means to attain that end, and does not extend to a change in the end itself, to the reduction of profits, or to the nondistribution of profits among stockholders in order to devote them to other purposes.
Although, there are examples where a court did recognize that helping employees will maximize profit, or not putting up bright lights next to a neighborhood is "moral". All of the decisions had to relate back to helping the shareholders. Most courts in the U.S. view shareholder profit as the #1 responsibility of the board of directors, others argue public safety might be #1, profits #2.
All of them agree that the primary purpose is to make/maximize profits, without which you can do nothing.
https://medium.com/bull-market/there-is-no-effective-fiducia...
There's certainly some merit to that argument.
> It's pretty much a corporations responsibility to try to avoid as much tax legally as it can.
That's a popular falsehood. It is a corporation's responsibility to fulfill the wishes of its shareholders. That doesn't even necessarily mean maximizing profits, and it certainly doesn't mean avoiding taxes to a degree that incurs both legal and reputational risk. If the shareholders want the company to act as a mature and respectable person would, then the corporation's duty is to do so.