Bangalore: Apple’s CEO was found arguing with certain assertions made by the Senate panel regarding the company’s tax practices on Tuesday.

At a hearing by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on investigations, Tim Cook testified saying that the company pays all the taxes they owe – even every single dollar and do not depend on tax gimmicks.  Also stressing on Apple as the nation’s largest corporate taxpayer, he stated that he was happy to appear at a congressional hearing to ‘give Apple’s side of the story’.

According to the subcommittee’s report, in 2011 Apple avoided around $3.5 billion in U.S. federal taxes and in 2012 it was $ 9 billion.

The key element of this tax strategy was said to be the involvement of Irish subsidiaries. However Cook was asserting that the subsidiaries had nothing to do with reducing its U.S. taxes. Instead, the company does not pay 35 percent federal tax rate on profits made overseas by not bringing those profits back to U.S.