Apple has paid less than 2% in taxes for profits generated outside of the US in the last fiscal year, according to a regulatory filing by the company.
The iPhone maker paid $713m in taxes on $36.87bn in foreign profits for the fiscal year ended 29 September 2012.
Apple’s foreign earnings increased 53% from fiscal 2011, when the company earned $24bn outside the US and paid income tax of 2.5% on it.
The decrease in Apple’s overseas tax rate came as the company sold 125m iPhones, 58m iPads, and 13.5m MacBook laptops globally, including the US.
Last year, Apple is estimated to have avoided over £550m in tax in the UK.
Apple had a net income of $41.7bn, or $44.15 per diluted share, in fiscal 2012, compared to $25.9bn, or $27.68 per diluted share, in fiscal 2011.
For the fiscal fourth quarter of 2012, Apple had reported a 27% rise in its revenue to $36bn, compared to $28.2bn for the same period last year.
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Apple is the latest company to be identified as paying low rates of overseas tax, following Starbucks, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Amazon in recent weeks.
Recently, Google had denied a report published in a French publication that claims it had received a €1bn tax claim from France.
