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What ethical standard is there that can determine how much tax a person or corporation should pay, apart from tax law?

It's not like there are pre-existing moral rules in the case of taxes -- taxes exist only because of tax law; tax law defines what taxes are, who is to pay them, and how much they ought to pay. Tax law is the only authoritative standard to which someone's behavior re: taxes can be submitted.

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The spirit of said tax law.

It's not possible to determine the spirit of the tax law an objective way: the tax law is actually an accretion of a bunch of laws and amendments, passed decades apart by different people with different intentions, who were influenced by the politics of their time, lobbyists, the state of the economy, the upcoming presidential election, etc.

For example, some parts of tax law were passed by politicians who wanted to help corporations avoid paying taxes, and other parts were passed by politicians who wanted corporations to stop avoiding taxes. Both of these contradictory intentions are embodied in our current tax law. The spirit of the law is confused at best.

I grant you that it might not be possible in all the cases. But it'd be hard to argue that the double-Dutch sandwich was something any politician ever intended.

Or for which they could ever possibly have a mandate.

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