The New York Times Editorial Board has it right in Apple, Congress and the Missing Taxes.
Corporations like Apple, laughing all the way to the bank -- make maximum use of existing expensive government structures -- set up mostly FOR THEIR BENEFIT (e.g. the patent system, the courts, the enforcing federal agencies, etc., which your average citizen never needs or uses) -- yet these firms refuse to pay for them.
The clueless in Congress -- more or less directly responsible for the offsore profit-parking practice -- are just one aspect of a larger problem -- which is the widespread ignorance, endless hype, and extreme gullibility found not only in the centers of American power and influence, but extending far beyond -- to the "dark fields of the republic" (with apologies to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the phrase appears in The Great Gatsby).
Greed-based companies like Apple have been raised to fully undeserved celebrity status by hordes of their uninformed and fleeced customers, while these same firms shamelessly plunder their wallets and the nation's coffers. Each country gets the system it deserves....
Hat tip to CaryGEE.
