It seems to me absolutely ethical. Any country can make whatever tax laws they want to get an advantage over other countries. If the EU and its population want to ban this practice, they should reorganize the tax laws.
The EU are say that Ireland’s laws break these EU treaties, and are thus invalid. There’s probably some valid questions regarding why the EU acted now, and not previously. But ultimately if those treaties has provide no time limit on enforcement, then the EU is free to pursue remediation whenever it wants. Today, tomorrow or two decades time.
If the current tax situation is anything to go by, no government anywhere is competent at taxing multi-nationals. The US made loud noises about the EU trying to force Ireland to tax Apple, but only because the US wants the tax revenue instead, but even the US hasn’t figured out how it’ll actually get Apple to pay more tax.
When services that take care of people depend on taxes then yeah lower taxation without a backup is inherently unethical.
Additionally, lower government revenue should require cuts from other areas first, like military and corporate subsidies. We shouldn’t accept that any of the supposedly missing Apple tax revenue should affect the poor or uneducated. To threaten such seems unethical.
By the way, in case anyone claims that the tax revenue was 'stolen' from other countries- it's not up to the Irish government to charge higher taxes in order to subsidize other countries services (be it directly or by presenting itself as more expensive tax-wise than it needs to be).
If the US doesn't like Irelands tax policy ban US companies from setting up Irish subsidiaries.
A lot of this just comes down to the will of the people not being represented in their governments though, but thats just simply a bigger problem to deal with first before the cascade of other symptomatic issues of that root cause can be addressed.
Just because it's legal, doesn't mean it's right.
- It makes sense for governments to provide healthcare, education, police, the military, welfare for the elderly/poor/disabled, basic infrastructure like electricity, water, etc. These things don't tend to work well when privatized, and humanity has advanced to the point where we have sufficient productivity/technological advances that we can (and should) provide these things for everyone
- These things are expensive, extensive taxes are required to pay for them
- I believe progressive taxation is the most reasonable way to pay for these things. The poor pay next to no taxes, and as you get wealthier, a greater percentage of that wealth gets taxed, because you get less marginal benefit from it anyways. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of ~$180 billion. Apple has a cash reserves of ~$250 billion. Take $100 billion from either of them, and there's virtually no impact on the person or corporation. Raise those same taxes from ONE MILLION middle class individuals and small business ($100,000 each), and you utterly destroy those MILLION individuals/small-businesses. Tax revenue must come from somewhere, more of it should come from the uber-wealthy
- There are many forms of taxes, but ultimately they're almost all paid by individuals and businesses. For the lower, middle, and "normal" upper classes, as well as small to reasonably large businesses, progressive taxation is a reality. Those with the ability to pay more, do pay more
- However, for the uber-wealthy individuals and businesses, those with almost unimaginable wealth, they have the power and influence to literally alter the law for their own benefit. They use this power/influence to pay near-zero tax. But the services of government still need to be paid for, so it comes from everyone else, for whom taxes are actually a big deal, instead of the insanely wealthy, who could easily afford to pay massive taxes with basically no impact, but prefer to be even more insanely wealthy
When the altering of laws to favour the uber-wealthy happens through pure corruption (like literally paying off lawmakers, behind closed doors), it's obviously unethical. When it happens through more legalized corruption, like making big donations to political candidates, then using your position of influence to change laws, I think most agree this is still unethical. It's a bit more arguable when it happens via one country enabling gaping tax evasion, for the benefit of that country, at the cost of all other countries. From my point of view, it's nearly as bad - you're helping the richest of the rich evade taxes, normal people and smaller businesses are burdened with higher tax load to make up for it, and it's done for the good of a few over the good of the many. The scale is different, one-country vs. all-other-countries, instead of few-citizens vs. all-other-citizens, or few-businesses vs. all-other-businesses, but the impact is similar. The selfishness of a few leads to tax loopholes for the richest of the rich, and everyone else pays for it.
Obviously, the fight to close tax loopholes for the uber-wealthy is a tough one - they're so powerful, and they only have to win over a handful of lawmakers to evade taxes. But it's a fight worth fighting, IMO. The status quo, where the uber-wealthy pay minimal taxes, and the tax burden falls on everyone else, is leading to excessive wealth inequality, that is only growing over time.
How do you conclude that? Come to my house and take away anything you think has no impact on me , how are you concluding that this has no impact on anything?
This is all bad thinking. Apple is holding a cash Reserve with 250 billion dollar, and you seem to know why instead of distributing it to their shareholders they are stocking it. Similarly, you apparently know what Jeff Bezos wants to do with his money.
If you’re an anarchistic or libertarian, you won’t believe much in taxes at all, that’s fine. But if you believe the government is useful, then the funding/taxes must come from somewhere, and I believe progressive taxation is the best way to do this - the way to raise taxes with the most minimal impact on utility. Virtually all nations do this, for the poor-to-fairly-wealthy individuals and businesses. However, the insanely wealthy individuals and businesses wield their power to change laws, and pay insanely low tax rates, shifting the tax burden onto everyone else. This is the part that I consider unethical - the uber-wealthy and lawmakers teaming up for the benefit of the few at the cost of many.
They are all based on complete and utter misunderstanding of what 'marginal utility' means.
If Jeff Bezos is planning to cure old age with his 1 Trillion dollars, then the marginal utility of an additional $100 million for him would be a lot more than to an underemployed barista with a $100k debt which will be wiped off with that money whereas Bezos would get to live forever with that money. So which one has a higher marginal utility, that $100 million for Bezos or it given to other individuals.
That doesn't mean that the study should have asked what they wanted to do with that money, but that these things aren't comparable at all to each other. This is just a roundabout way to justify taxation.