Corporations don't hold tax burden, only people do. Corporate taxes are ultimately paid by shareholders, workers and customers; 'Apple' never pays taxes. In a fairly free global economy, many economists hold that workers bear the brunt of the corporate tax burden.

> "Which is paid by Apple customers, not Apple."

VAT is paid by businesses, who collect it on behalf of HMRC on any sales they make.

Yes, it adds 20% to the price of goods sold. But you could say this of any tax: if Apple was paying £200m in UK corporate taxes then it's a fair bet that prices would increase to compensate.

What is unfair, however, is the way that multi-nationals can shift profits across borders to low tax countries, putting them at an advantage relative to domestic competition who pay full UK corporate tax rates.

> What is unfair, however, is the way that multi-nationals can shift profits across borders to low tax countries, putting them at an advantage relative to domestic competition who pay full UK corporate tax rates.

That unfairness is inherent to corporate income tax. Apple reports profits in Ireland because the rate is lower there, but if the rates were lower in the US or China or some other place where they actually have major operations and they reported profits there instead, the argument that the profits don't belong there falls away even though you have the same end result. And the same disadvantage for domestic companies compared to international ones.

The solution is to stop trying to tax "profit" to begin with and only tax the thing that actually happens in your jurisdiction (e.g. sales, employment, property ownership).

It's still paid for by the customer, in a way corporation tax is not