This is not true at all. The correct way of stating matters would be : If Apple paid out all of it's $181B to shareholders, it would owe $ about half the claim

This is not true at all. The correct way of stating matters would be : If Apple paid out all of it's $181B to shareholders, it would owe $ about half the claimed amount in US taxes. Apple however has not made this decision not to pay out to shareholders, and it would be extremely impractical to attempt to force it. Note that Apple hasn't actually paid out this money to shareholders, so it probably will do so at some point in the future, and still pay these taxes. These taxes are deferred, not "avoided". It's just doing so at a slower rate (and probably waiting until negotiations with the IRS yield a better deal) If it was outlawed to hold this tax overseas, Apple would still not pay it out to shareholders. Instead it would simply invest it, in overseas real estate, overseas data centers, overseas financial holdings or whatever. It seems to me very unlikely that it would make a different decision (not pay out vs. pay out) simply because the US govt. would try to force them. Or worse, Apple would do what companies did before WWII. Never pay out profits. Instead have a deal that roughly amounts to this : "if you have $xx of apple stock, you get a director position within Apple, which comes with an expense account, free disneyworld access, a yacht, ..." and never pay out anything (and then have 10 tiers of this deal ...). And yes, that is legal.