Apple has called for US corporate tax rates to be slashed after it admitted sheltering at least $30bn (£20bn) of international profits in Irish subsidiaries that pay no tax at all. In a dramatic display of how threats from multinational corporations are driving down taxes across the world, chief executive Tim Cook warned Congress that he would refuse to repatriate a total of $100bn stashed offshore unless it acted to slash the 35% US rate...He also revealed that Apple had struck a secret deal with the Irish government in 1980 to limit its domestic taxes there to 2%...An independent tax professor, Richard Harvey, testified that its tax avoidance was "probably legal" and could have been much more aggressive.