Why Obama Won't Demand Bigger Bite From Apple

"I'm sympathetic to questioning the attitude of a corporation that is using our infrastructure, tax-paid infrastructure, and is rude about it," said Lee Munson, chief investment officer at Portfolio LLC, who says he's an Apple shareholder. "I don't care what they pay in tax, per se, but ... I think we should make it an issue of what they get for it."

Munson said Apple uses the American judicial system to protect its patents and copyrights and that it relies on the country's naval defense to secure global shipping lanes and ports in order to lower import and export costs.

As a public company, Apple's commitment should be to maximize shareholder value, and its ability to legally maneuver the complex U.S. tax code likely saves the company billions every year. But Munson posits that without the government's protection, Apple wouldn't enjoy such hefty margins.

"Would they like to pay less taxes and not have their patents upheld in a court of law? We the United States could arrange that. Would they like everybody just copying their products? We could arrange that. Would they like to be on their own as they're shipping their products across the ocean sort of on their own? Philosophically speaking, we could arrange that," Munson said.

Apple isn't alone in sidestepping these taxes, and the company and others (including Exxon) benefit from America's vast resources, which give U.S. businesses significant advantages in the global marketplace.

Apple may seem an easy target for criticism at a time when it continues to report record profits and revenue, rolling over most U.S. companies at a time when economic conditions are tepid at best.

Di Martino, the Democratic strategist, said Obama has already started to address the ability of Apple and other U.S. companies to jump through loopholes with his proposed plan for corporate tax reform.

"It's not really a question of 'is Apple an evil company? Or is Apple benefiting the United States, as opposed to the United States benefiting from Apple?' The sad truth is that taxes are going to have to rise over the next ten years to pay for our structural deficit, our entitlements, and that's probably no matter what we do to spending," said Joseph Bankman, a tax law professor at Stanford University.

Bankman said the real issue Americans must debate is what groups should be paying increased taxes.