There is a pretty clear difference, to me, between saying "this practice is obviously wrong, but technically legal--and we should work to change that," and lauding the company's actions as "good accounting," scolding people for confusing the act of successfully evading paying taxes with "tax evasion" as though this particular bit of legal jargon were shedding light on anything for non-accountants, and carrying water for companies that are not mere passive actors who benefit from a bizarre tax code with inexplicable but convenient loopholes, but rather actively lobby for tax laws to be changed to benefit them (something I, as an individual without billions of dollars to my name, could not effectively do even if I wanted to).
I don't think there's much that's 'obviously' right or wrong in economic policies or tax law, and certainly companies that would fare worse under your proposed changes are the wrong target for urges of change.
Or any legislation really, that's the point of case law, a particular circumstance wasn't anticipated, so there's some interpretation and umming and ahing, and thenceforth that example's able to be used to steer the next.
Online service companies (for example) operating over multiple physical territories, not really 'in' any more than the other, weren't anticipated, the broad strokes of the way they're taxed predates them. It makes sense to advocate for some fundamental change that reimagines how to effectively tax them (I wouldn't call it 'obviously' necessary, but it's a sensible argument worthy of debate) - but it's a waste of breath to expect such companies to volunteer extra tax not required of them.
The fact that for you "should online companies pay taxes?" is a subject worthy of debate indicates such a vast gulf between our positions that there's really nothing to discuss, I think. Certainly the idea that Google is not "in" any particular country seems pretty strange to me, but if that is indeed your position then clearly it should pay tax in all of those countries, not none.
Not 'should they pay taxes' (of course, those which are owed, not doing so is evasion and illegal) but 'how should they be taxed'.
Tax laws apply to them, but pretty much (IANA tax professional btw) aren't setup for online companies and haven't changed (in rough form) since they existed.
Profit based taxation doesn't work if you can just continually reinvest revenue and not declare a profit. (Not unique to online cos of course, but perhaps more prevalent? Maybe more linked to high R&D cos in general.)
Defining where a sale was conducted is messy if your headquarters, accounting dept., tech dept., servers, TLD, customer, self-identity, ... can all be in different jurisdictions.
Etc. ad nauseam. That's what's up for debate.
I think we'd be happy with the same outcome, I just don't think it's worth appealing to companies to ignore the bottom line and pay tax to a level that's higher than required (and so not defined) but that 'we' (you'll never please everyone, so pluck a number out of the air) will be happy with.
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