An Australian investigation into technology company Apple has revealed details on just how many billions of dollars the global giant has shifted in profits around the world to minimize its tax.

The Australian Financial Review's analysis shows that while Australians have bought $27 billion worth of Apple products since 2002, the company has paid only $193 million to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) - just 0.7 per cent of its turnover.

The newspaper estimates that around $9 billion in profit has been shifted offshore to minimise taxation.

"Apple worldwide in the past four years have avoided paying tax on $US44 billion," said Antony Ting, a senior lecturer in taxation law at Sydney University.

Mr Ting has long been investigating how companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Google exploit tax laws to their advantage.

"If I pay $600 for an iPad in Australia, then $550 is paid to Apple Ireland and out of the $550, $220 is not taxed anywhere in the world," Dr Ting explained.

"So that means basically around 40 per cent of the payments we make to buy Apple products in Australia has escaped Australian tax and at the same time escaped tax anywhere in the world."

The Financial Review obtained a decade's worth of financial accounts for Apple Sales International.

Investigative journalist Neil Chenoweth discovered how Apple manages to avoid tax legally by moving money to foreign safe havens.

Dr Ting says it is the best estimate yet of the Apple profits which have escaped Australian coffers.

"Apple's structure is perfectly legal under the current tax law, but they are very good at looking at loopholes and the current structure has, in a way, the blessing of the US government," he said.

"Because the US tax law provides or facilitates Apple to avoid foreign tax on their foreign income and the US government knows that this is the problem for over 10 years, but they do not take any action at all.

"What Apple convinced the US government [of] is that by helping Apple to avoid foreign tax, you are helping Apple to be more competitive in the world markets."

Apple declined the ABC's request for an interview or a comment on the issue.

Transfer pricing loophole

Dr Ting says Apple uses a form of so-called transfer pricing to shift its taxable income to low tax countries.

"It's basically what we call transfer pricing - so Australia Apple purchased the iPads from Ireland and Ireland of course, the Irish company is in fact a paper company, it has virtually no employees, very small costs and all the products are manufactured in China by third party manufacturers," he said.

"With the global transfer pricing arrangement, Apple Australia has to pay out of this $600 purchase... $550 to Ireland, so by that payment the bulk of the profit it shifts from Australia to Ireland and where it escaped tax anywhere in the world."

US tax lawyer Lee Sheppard, who specialises in multinational corporations, says companies are exploiting the fact that most of their products' value rests in intellectual property.

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"The value of such a product is really not in the plastic and glass, right? It's in the protected intellectual property, it's in the patents. That, as income, that could be represented by a royalty," she said.

"What Apple and companies like it are doing is they are arranging themselves in such a way that the royalties go through Ireland to places like Bermuda where they're not taxed."

Ms Sheppard says it is a perfectly legal way of doing business under current international tax law and corporate governance arrangements.

"Australia and the other G20 countries, and the members of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), they've all signed tax treaties and the tax treaties say that a company can deduct royalties and it can pay royalties to itself, essentially, and sometimes you have a treaty that says you don't withhold tax on that either."

Government committed to capturing tax

The Federal Government says it is committed to capturing taxes that companies like Apple have avoided.

Treasurer Joe Hockey, who hosted the recent G20 finance ministers meeting in Sydney, made tax avoidance a key part of the G20's agenda.

"The starting point is we will be discussing things that do affect the lives of everyday Australians," he said at the time.

"We will be discussing taxation arrangements and transfer pricing by major corporations around the world."

The Government was keen to press the message again this morning.

"Businesses should pay their fair share of tax where they earn profits and it's important though to address that in a coordinated way," Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said.

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The Trade Minister Andrew Robb has echoed that statement.

"Our view has been, as a government, that all companies must pay a fair share of tax," he said.

There was a breakthrough at the G20, with nations agreeing to adopt new rules for the automatic exchange of tax information.

The OECD is also looking into the issue.

Dr Ting says while large companies will continue to try to avoid paying tax, some things are starting to change.

"With the international consensus [and the] determination of the government we can at least minimise the opportunities for multinationals to avoid tax."