Big oil gets targeted constantly for windfall tax proposals. As Apple marches toward $50+ billion in profit, it seems impossible the government will just leave the world's richest and most powerful corporation alone.
That's not the case with Apple, Google, MS or other tech companies.
It's about the money. That's why big oil has always been a target, it has been the most profitable enterprise in America since Rockefeller formed Standard Oil.
News flash: they also didn't target big tobacco because cigarettes are bad for you (that was merely the excuse they needed), or to pay for healthcare bills. They targeted them to steal / fleece a golden goose, and then divert the stolen money to other projects. Which is exactly what they did.
Walmart are massively profitable and are by many measures the biggest company in the world yet remain untargeted. If what you say is true why is this?
As you say, it's the excuse they need but if they don't have an excuse then the won't/can't do it.
They could look very deep into the "made in china" "issue". Lookup "Kluska" - owner of company Optimus in Poland. One of the richest man in 90s. Basically, CBS imprisoned him for months after he allegedly broke the law by exporting parts to foreign countries where PCs were assembled and brought back to Poland. The issue was that he did not pay tax out of the assembly. After years of litigation (bail denied), he was free man, while his company went bankrupt and he was left in debt after fighting with Government. Polish IRS (Urzad Skarbowy) did not even apologize.
1) Big Oil is in an industry where demand is highly inelastic, while demand for consumer electronics is far more elastic.
2) Big Oil is the subject of huge direct and indirect subsidies. Apple benefits to some extent from the fact that they don't pay for some of the inherent costs of their profit-making activity (disposal of iPhones, etc). The energy industry generally, and the fossil fuels industry in particular, don't pay for a lot of the inherent costs of their activity. From an economic point of view, dollar of uncompensated environmental damage is as good as a dollar of direct subsidies. The BP settlement, at less than what BP would've had to pay in damages, was probably $10bn+ subsidy. I haven't seen statistics for the oil industry, but the indirect subsidies in the coal industry run to the $300-$500 billion/year range (http://www.fastcompany.com/1727949/coal-use-costs-half-a-tri...). I'd imagine oil is in the same ballpark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#Allocation_of_...
Also, created the problem of sending so much money overseas.