Exactly. Why should corporations get off easy when we don't?
As an aside, I've got some bad news about how Socrates' method worked out for him.
> I mean we could
The post I was replying to talked about “closing” a corporation for a rule violation. Closing a company is akin to “killing” it, not “punishing” it. I think the analogy stands.
You'd rob a bank and then drop by the police station to drop off their cut just to avoid the hassle of "getting investigated" later.
So obviously the punishment has to be worse than the value of doing it. But not 1:1 either, if you know you'll only catch 50% of robbers, then the fine would have to be something like ${amountStolen}*3 so that the equation makes the Expected return of robbery sharply negative. I.e. if you expect to get caught 50% of the time, and only had to return the money you stole when caught... then robbery would be very profitable. If you had to pay twice what you stole, then the Expected return is actually a wash, and wouldn't necessarily deter potential robbers. However if you have to pay a fine of 3x what you stole and you think you'll get caught 50% of the time then it's a money-losing venture.
This is all ignoring jail time, of course, because no one can send Google to jail... so from the corporations point of view it just comes down to money.
Keeping the taxes as "fines" ensures they can give EU companies favorable treatment. It's the definition of corrupt: "a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money"
$1.5B is far below the amount of revenue Google got from advertising since 2006. I'm not sure what you mean by this.