How about in 2007 and 2008 then?

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes.html

And just what do you think the original article is about? is it payroll and local taxes or is it corporate taxes?
I think you will find it is a the latter and not the former.

Tel that to Ireland. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8148882/US-firms-warn-Irish-over-tax-move.html

The flip side of this is that when Ireland was having to deal with some of the worst issues of their recession, they were unable to leverage the corporation tax to increase revenues as a group of American Corps informed them that they would leave if there was any change in threshold. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8148882/US-firms-warn-Irish-over-tax-move.html

They also have a history of not paying tax and in getting large tax deductions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE#Recent_controversies

It is not just since the recession that they have been behaving like this.

Is that one of the reasons for Beatification?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_tax
I could be wrong but I believe that the US position on Corporation tax is that the tax is being applied for the privilege of operating a corporation and that it would be illegal to apply a tax on profits otherwise. (IANAL)

That said, even if you are correct and it is a basic right then surely with rights come responsibilities and one of the responsibilities of "doing" a business is to pay appropriate tax on any profits gained and to not evade taxation. The result of tax evasion is sometimes a fine and sometimes a custodial sentence, but I am pretty sure the Tax dude will have the power to stop a company from trading if it can be proved that the company evaded taxes.

In my country employee taxes mostly come out of the employees wages, the company only gathers sum and gives it to the government. So technically the employees pay that for the bit of their life that they will never get back.

Share holders are not the same as the company, it may be that the company will hold share of itself, but are you suggesting that tax paid an another entity be counted as tax paid by Apple? If you are, could you pay my taxes for me?
Also if Apple stock lost money would you propose that Apple inc. pay tax as the stock holders would have reduced their tax bill?
Also there have been no Apple dividends

Well as has been pointed out before in this thread Apple and other large corporates are channelling money though third party countries to reduce, or even remove the need to pay corporation tax. Corporation tax is the price for being an American corporation and for the privilege of doing business in the USA, I am under the impression that all countries have some sort of tax like this, it is just that Apple et al don't want to pay this price. Do you think that Apple etc. should be allowed to to operate in the USA without paying their dues?

No, as pointed out earlier in other posts, corporation tax is 35%. Not 90%! I know you think that you are cumulatively adding up all the payments, but really you are getting confused with gross and net profits and what taxes apply to where or when.

Apple tie this money up in the business by not spending it, they are sitting on $100 Billion in cash reserves. I am not suggesting that this is wrong, they are entitled to hold as much money as they want, but it is disingenuous for you to suggest that the $34 Billion is tied up in the business.

The old "if we don't pay what we want we will leave" argument. If they are not prepared to pay the appropriate taxes for the privilege of doing business in your country then why let them? This goes for Micro$oft and General Electric too!
Large corporations employ less people than small businesses (a small business is less than 500 people) and yet it is small businesses that bear the brunt of taxation while large corporates get the tax breaks, the ear of the government and multi-million-dollar CEO's

Fair enough, although it didn't scan like a rhetorical question and I am abashed at being "fooled" by the subtlety of you rhetoric.

The duck test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test

I just did http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate and the UK is 35th on the list with the USA being 49th.

Just to point out being higher on the list is better

So now what?

FTA

The reason I don't gamble for money especially in casinos is that the casinos are there to take my money and unless I am very good at working out the odds I will loose my money.

It doesn't seem logical for me to do this.

So using people who, by my reasoning, don't think logically as an example of how we all don't think logically doesn't really seem, well, logical.