Last year, the EU ruled that Apple had been illegally avoiding paying taxes by splitting profit from subsidiary companies and re-routing them to a "head office" in Ireland which was not subject to tax. The Commissioner gave Ireland four months to collect the roughly US $14.5 billion in taxes, but nothing has been recovered as of yet.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-misses-deadline-to-pay-back-taxes.194938.0.html