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?