A US Senate subcommittee has accused Apple of using Irish subsidiaries to avoid paying billions of dollars in tax. The claims, made in a report this week, will be seized upon by those who wish to attack traitorous multinationals and low tax countries. But the senators would do better to look closer to home. An overcomplicated US tax code has allowed the principle of no double taxation to degenerate into one of double no taxation.

True, the report does contain much that is shocking about Apple’s behaviour. The technology company has been aggressive in the way it has managed its tax affairs. Apple seems, by virtue of playing off the US and Irish tax systems, to have achieved what Senator Carl Levin described as the holy grail of being taxed nowhere at all. According to the report, an Irish-registered but US-managed subsidiary avoided filing any tax returns between 2009 and 2012 in spite of receiving $30bn of income. Other subsidiaries, it claims, negotiated Irish corporate tax rates of 2 per cent or less.

The report is likely to put Ireland under the spotlight just when OECD is focusing on profit shifting and base erosion, and Europe is again muttering about unfair competition. But to be fair, there is no evidence that Ireland struck preferential deals with Apple. Nor is there anything to suggest that Apple has acted illegally, as Tim Cook, chief executive, stressed to the committee on Tuesday. Much of the avoidance cited is routinely used by US multinationals, thanks to a tax code which invites this through differing treatment of foreign and domestic earnings. At last count, US companies held $1.7tn in unremitted profits.