Apple has been accused of being one of the largest tax avoiders in the US, by a powerful committee of US senators.
The company's chief executive, Tim Cook, CFO Peter Oppenheimer, and head of tax operations, Philip Bullock, will appear before the panel today.
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Apple has prepared its response to the committee in a report, stating that it "pays all its required taxes, both in [the US] and abroad".
But while the committee hasn't suggested that Apple has acted in an illegal way, it said that the Cupertino-based firm had used "a complex web of offshore entities" to avoid paying billions of dollars in US income taxes.
"Apple sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars while claiming to be tax resident nowhere," Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said yesterday.
According to the committee, Apple's complex structure includes three Irish affiliates. One of those subsidiaries, called Apple Sales International (ASI), had reported pre-tax profits of $22bn (£14.4bn), but it paid only $10m (£6.57m) in taxes - a tax rate of 0.05 per cent.
Between 2009 and 2012, the ASI arrangement enabled Apple to move $74bn (£48.6bn) in worldwide profits out of the US, the report said.
The iPhone maker was criticised three weeks ago when it sold $17bn (£11.1bn) in bonds rather than sending home some of its cash reserves, which would be taxed in the US. This saved the firm about $9.2bn (£6bn) in taxes.
Apple is the latest technology firm to be linked to tax avoidance. Google has been accused by MPs in the UK that it minimises the amount of tax paid in Britain, despite evidence that its sales staff close deals in the UK. Google denied the accusations, claiming that all sales staff operate out of Dublin. Meanwhile, Amazon is also facing questions about the level of business activity that it conducts out of its headquarters in Patriot Court, Slough.
The prime minister, David Cameron, is to put forward the issue of taxation of multinational internet businesses at the G8 meeting in Northern Ireland next month.
