Nope, Apple pays a world-wide rate of 24.6%.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/11/the-facts-about-apple...

And the real rate is actually higher because it doesn't count the deferred taxes they owe and will pay when they repatriate.

The statement from Apple includes "Apple’s effective tax rate on foreign earnings is 21 percent" but that is not the rate they've actually paid. They state elsewhere that they believe the majority of taxes should be paid in the U.S., but they're not actually paying them here, either. Instead they're holding the income off-shore to avoid paying the taxes where they say they should be paid, and waiting for the rate to be lowered or even eliminated in a one-time holiday.

IOW, that 24.6% absolutely does include the money they say they expect to owe when they eventually repatriate those earnings.

In the meantime, they earn returns on the money they've set aside that they "owe" for taxes they aren't actually paying, so deferring the payments is very profitable for them. They've even taken out large loans in the U.S. to pay dividends, because it was cheaper for them to borrow money and pay it back with interest than repatriate this money.

It's fair to say I love Apple, and I've been described as too ardent a defender of their, but they're being ridiculously disingenuous here, and it's clearly working, as you took that sentence from their statement at face value.

I don't know if everything you say is accurate, but grant for a moment that it is. I still don't understand what you think is disingenuous.

There is no law that requires US corporations to repatriate their profits; not choosing to do so means they're deferring a tax liability. What's disingenuous about that?

"What they then choose to do with the money after that, and what taxes individuals pay on their own investments, are not part of Apple's tax rate."

It's not part of Apple's rate, it's part of the rate at which the entire investment is taxed. The US taxes profits on corporate investments in the range of 35-70%, do you really think that's realistic? A business owner has a large number of countries they can just re-incorporate in to be able to keep 3/4s of their profits instead of less than half.