Why is this a surprise to anyone? The bigger the company, the more incentive it has to create a tax-avoidance strategy, and the more resources it has to do so successfully.
Avoiding taxes by legal means, is neither illegal nor immoral.
I'm not sure why so many people seem to think this is such a big deal. It happens everywhere around the world. Companies like Shell and bands like U2 do the same. It's called tax avoidance and it's not illegal and personally I wouldn't even call it immoral or unethical. Business has little to do with morals or ethics as far as I'm concerned. It's the task of the lawmakers to decide the borders of morality / ethics and make clear laws and business just has to abide by the laws.
Personally I strive to pay as little tax as possible as well. I can't blame businesses for trying the same.
If you ever think of a financial trick to avoid taxes and say "why couldn't companies do X", the answer without fail is "because it's illegal and you aren't aware of the specific law you're violating".
If this was legal all sorts of companies would do this all the time.
It is immoral if you evade the intent of the law by exploiting dubious loopholes such that you reduce the amount of tax you should pay beyond any reasonable lower limit to almost zero.
Starbucks needing to pay Starbucks so that they can use the Starbucks brand (and thus - co-incidentally we're told) syphoning off profit from Starbucks UK to Starbucks cupboard in tax haven is an example of something that might be legally correct but is morally wrong.
I think it's pretty clear that we disagree, so feel free to have the last word.
The difference is that those companies were/are exploiting various loopholes in laws across many countries to avoid paying the tax they ordinarily would. Immoral? Sure. Illegal? No.
I'm no tax professional, but it sounds like this leak is about a large number of wealthy people actively evading tax, by hiding their assets/source of income and other shady things. This is very illegal, and if true, I imagine some of these people can and will be prosecuted for it.
Simple question: do you consider tax evasion unethical?
I’m not arguing that every mid to large size company is guilty either, but we can’t ignore how common certain activities are in the market, things like share buybacks, the legal cases around corporate personhood, offshore tax havens, etc.
Name a top tech company that doesn’t have an office in Ireland for taxation purposes. Joe’s tire shop down the street probably doesn’t, but I’d be willing to bet that a pretty significant percentage of the Fortune 500 do. Facebook, Apple, Google, Dell, Amazon, and many others do. They’ve created business structures that allow them to funnel money around the globe and avoid paying taxes on it. Is that illegal? Obviously not. Is it the right thing to do, especially as we live in a time where millions are out of work and starting to go hungry? Corporations that have expatriated billions in earnings on work done in the US are now asking for billions in bailouts, is that ethical? Again, mom and pop shops don’t have the influence to do this, but the Fortune 500 do.
I think this is good news. Companies such as Google and others have been avoiding paying taxes for too long. They do this in ways which up until now were fraudulent but technically legal, by creating fictional companies or by laundering money via havens.
Evading taxes is illegal. Tax avoidance is legal and it's a fiduciary duty of corporate officers. They would actually be violation their fiduciary duties if they paid more tax than was required.
It's insightful to see how many comments are about avoiding tax. Companies with an anti-society, screw-the-poor, not-my-problem attitude are exactly the kind of companies that make the world a worse place for everyone - except shareholders and (sometimes) paying customers.
Tax is part of participation in democratic societies, intentionally avoiding it is immoral if you also enjoy the benefits of the same democratic system.
If it can be argued that it is done to avoid paying taxes, it is probably illegal for that reason, and you should look into local laws relating to business taxation.
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