Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) may have to start paying its taxes across the world. An Italian investigation into the company’s tax avoidance in that country became public knowledge last week. Cash strapped European nations are looking for the Cupertino company to pay what they say is its fair share, and it may finally be ready to force that opinion on the company in court.

What Apple is doing is ostensibly legal. The company is doing its best to lower its tax bill in order to return the most value to its shareholders. That low tax bill is one of the many reasons that the company has been so successful, and why its shares are so valuable. If the company’s expected tax bite increases, shareholders may see the value of their piece of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) decline.

Europe Fights Tax Dodging

Single countries going after Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) for taxes it hasn’t paid won’t do all that much harm to the company’s bottom line. Each case will more than likely end like the one in France. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will settle with individual governments on terms favorable to it and its shareholders, and terms that governments are able to hold up as evidence of a political victory.

Individual countries have little power over Apple. The company will draw out cases, and settle them in order to avoid structural change. A wider European, or American, effort to bring that structural change to tax policy is what Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shareholders should be worried about. Fortunately it seems that structural change is a long way off, if it’s even possible.

Neither American or European lawmakers seem all that interested in going after Apple right now. Early talk that the German Social Democrats would make Irish tax reform a condition of any coalition with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats disappeared when news of NSA bugging of the German Chancellor emerged. Apple shareholders may breathe easy for now, but the risk has not yet passed.

Apple Holds On

The major problem with Apple’s tax avoidance is that there is a limit to the amount of money on the table. Ireland is not going to self regulate, but lawmakers in the United States and Europe may decide to make a move. If either moves first, the other will be forced to respond. Otherwise the unpaid tax could all flow to one side or the other. As soon as one side begins to regulate Apple’s tax, it will begin a process that is difficult to stop.

Isolated cases are not what Apple needs to respond to. The company will only really suffer is structural tax change raises its head. This will not just affect Apple. Many major multinationals exploit the same loopholes in Ireland’s tax. If either the United States or the European Union decides to go at the problem, Apple will be the first major target. Shareholders should keep abreast of the change in structural policy. Isolate cases like the Italian investigation are less important.

Disclosure: Author represents that he has no position in any stocks mentioned in this article at the time this article was submitted.