By Patrick Temple-West WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Apple Inc's chief executive officer defended the company's tax record at a Tuesday Senate hearing where lawmakers said the maker of iPads, iPods and Mac computers kept billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries to avoid U.S. taxes. The hearing marked another foray by the Senate's most powerful investigative committee into corporate offshore tax avoidance, which is increasingly a target of many governments from the United States to Western Europe. ...

By Conor Humphries and Padraic Halpin CORK/DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland said on Tuesday it was not to blame for Apple Inc's low global tax payments and had no special rate deal with the company after the U.S. Senate said it paid little or no tax on tens of billions of dollars in profits stashed in Irish subsidiaries. The Irish government, which has seen the luring of U.S. multinationals with low taxes as a key part of its economic policy since the 1960s, said its system was transparent and other countries were responsible if the tax rate paid by Apple was too low. ...

By David Henry TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co's outspoken chairman and chief executive, won a vote of confidence on Tuesday as shareholders decided to let him keep his chairman title by an even greater margin than last year. Dimon could not claim total victory at the bank's annual meeting. Three JPMorgan directors were re-elected by a slim majority, an unusual outcome. The three directors were on the board's risk management committee, which is widely seen as having fallen down after the bank lost $6.2 billion from risky derivatives trades last year. ...

By Leah Schnurr NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks gained on Tuesday as a record intraday high for Home Depot helped lift the blue-chip Dow, but investors were cautious a day ahead of congressional testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co extended gains after a preliminary tally showed shareholders had rejected a proposed split of the rose of chairman and chief executive officer. The stock was up 2.1 percent at $53.38. ...