I wouldn't stop just for the tax evasion, but Tim's open letter has been a direct insult to my intelligence. If he thinks I'm stupid I'm happy to prove him wrong by not buying his products ever again.

This is coming from someone that has avoided flying Ryanair his entire life, no matter how convenient or cheap it could've been.

Subsidizing means support financially or pay part of the cost of producing (something) to reduce prices for the buyer. Why is whatever you believe the appropriate tax rate should be the baseline for which you determine subsidies? Apple is paying taxes, not the other way around. Perhaps you believe they should be paying more taxes but that's not exactly subsidizing as the appropriate tax rate is not written in stone or decreed from the heavens.

Perhaps you believe that the government needs $X to function and by Apple paying less, we have to pay more. But this isn't true either as I'm sure your tax bill won't go down if Apple loses this case. Perhaps spending will increase in some program or some new commission gets created from the funds but this will not come free, as any money transferred from Apple to the discretion of Irish politicians will come from Apple shareholders.

    and by Apple paying less, we have to pay more.

Why would this not be true?

It absolutely is, I don't understand how someone gets so brainwashed to not understand such a simple concept. A nation has a finite set of costs, those costs are paid by taxes. If I pay less, someone else needs to pick up my slack.

I don't know how the European system works, but in the US taxes don't depend on proposed spending. The politicians don't get together and say we want to spend $X so let's see how much we get and then we'll adjust. I don't remember getting a tax rebate when the state pulled in billions from bank fees or some repatriation agreement.

In fact, spending and revenue have diverged increasingly since the financial crisis. Around 50% of federal funds are either transfer payments to the elderly (Medicare or ss) and military.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/07/fiscal-factcheck/

In the US, they overspend every single year. That is now debit, will Apple be paying a share of this debit at some point? Does Apple pay the interest on this debt? Of course not. Those costs are distributed to all the taxpayers. The cost of governance is X% of the economy. If Apple only pays X% - Y%, then the rest of the taxpayers must make up the difference in this year or down the road. If down the road, the costs are even greater than the savings Apple has received as interest must be paid to service the debit. Thus such a situation is wholly economically inefficient for everyone but Apple no matter how you slice it.

Also understand, these taxes are not for nothing. Without highways Apple can not ship it's product, without a legal system anyone can produce Apple's designs and undercut them.

We can decide what government services make sense to provide but everyone needs to pay their share or the system will fail. Rather violently, if history is any guide.

Yeah, I'm a defender of Apple because I don't think they should be asked to pay for taxes in the past. Instead, I would like to see all the evasion loopholes closed so Apple, and every other large company out there, can't do it for the future.