Cathy Kearney, Apple vice president for operations, who is based in Cork, said the company’s tax arrangements in Ireland did not involve state aid and said Apple ‘does not operate a double Irish structure’.

 ‘We’ve paid every cent of tax that’s due in Ireland. We don’t feel that there has been state aid involved, and we look forward to that outcome happening at the end of the day and being vindicated in that view.

‘We pay most of our taxes in the US. We pay tax in the local subsidiaries in full compliance with the tax law in those subsidiaries. We pay deferred tax income, and our income that is not taxed in Europe is subject to US tax,’ she said.

Kearney declined to disclose Apple’s EU and Irish tax figures, saying: ‘Those are confidential. When country-by-country reporting will become mandatory, we will of course follow.’

Adam Cohen, Google’s head of economic policy for EMEA, told the committee that Google had paid an average of 19% corporate tax over the last five years.

He said that while there was a debate about whether tax rules are fit for purpose, Google complied with all rules.

Cohen told MEPs there needed to be ‘clear rules of the road’ on taxation and wider international coordination, saying that if countries made their own changes there would be increased uncertainty and a greater risk of double taxation.

‘A patchwork of changes promote difficulty. It is up to governments to write rules and companies to follow. Google abides by the law. We make use of tax incentives and structures that are well known, that are accessible to and employed by virtually all companies,’ he said.

Asked about the Bermuda tax haven, Cohen said Google has a tax structure in Bermuda that does not affect the amount of tax it pays in Europe.

‘Without Bermuda it would be the same,’ he said. Both Cohen and Kearney told MEPs that their company’s tax structures were designed to minimise the amount of tax paid in the US, by not returning all profits earned overseas, rather than to seek to reduce the amount paid in the EU.

Kearney also said tax rules needed to be less complex, describing Apple as the ‘largest tax payer in the world’ and saying the company had ‘long argued for tax reform’. 

The committee was told Apple paid $13.2bn (£9.36bn), an effective tax rate of 26.5%, on its profits worldwide last year.

‘Tax laws that are clear, certain and consistently applied encourage investment and job creation,’ she said.

Both said they would welcome new tax rules agreed by the OECD as they promise more certainty and simplicity for companies.

However, Cohen expressed reservations about the Commission's Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) plans, which he claimed would increase costs for Google as it would require an establishment in every EU country and would be contrary to the principle of the internal market.

The committee also heard from Irene Yates, McDonalds' vice president for corporate tax, who told MEPs that while the company supported the OECD’s anti-BEPS proposals, it was concerned about unilateral approaches which could result if the BEPS directives are not harmonised in a holistic manner.

‘The idea should be to remove barriers to trade, not create new ones,’ Yates said. She also indicated McDonalds is not in favour of public reporting by country, saying : ‘Information should be kept confidential between tax authorities and not be made public. That could harm competition.’ 

Apple is awaiting the outcome of an EU investigation into its tax arrangements in Ireland. The company’s tax strategies came under scrutiny when the US Senate showed in 2011 that an Irish-incorporated subsidiary, which was controlled by a board in California, did not pay taxes in either the US or Ireland, despite recording profits of $30bn from 2009-11.

In a quarterly report filed last year in the US, Apple said that if the European Commission ruled against Ireland, ‘it could require Ireland to recover from the company past taxes covering a period of up to ten years, reflective of the disallowed state aid, and such amount could be material’.

The EU is also investigating McDonald’s tax affairs, opening an investigation in December to examine whether a 2009 tax ruling granted to a Luxembourg unit of the restaurant chain, McDonald’s Europe Franchising, had allowed it to avoid paying corporate tax.

Last year, the EU ruled that two so-called ‘sweetheart’ tax deals agreed between Starbucks and the Netherlands tax authorities and between Fiat Chrysler and Luxembourg tax officials amounted to unlawful state aid.