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Comment by cool_dude85 | Hacker News Reader

It's a very interesting line of thinking when a government that allows a company to incorporate, protects the company's physical and intellectual property by force and with a large legal apparatus, enforces the company's contracts, trains the company's workers, is somehow considered a robber when they ask the company to pay taxes.

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> allows a company to incorporate

Leaving aside cases of companies that actually have legal entities in a location (such as Apple), the comment that started this sub-thread was about companies that don't necessarily have any nexus in a location, and just provide services to people regardless of where those people are.

> trains the company's workers

How much of these products are designed and built in these Europeans countries though?

$13b seem to me an outrageous bill for those services. Could we see an itemized bill to make sure we are not overpaying the state? Or is it more like they have the monopoly of violence and we have to pay whatever they want or else?

> Or is it more like they have the monopoly of violence and we have to pay whatever they want or else?

You have to switch we and they. We are not Apple, but we are the people of a state.

I too have to pay whatever taxes the state determines, so I think "we" is the right pronoun here.

Who is "asking" and who is "taking" in the scenario you mention? The whole notion of "allowing to incorporate", in terms of basic freedoms that a modern society is supposed to maintain and protect, contradicts with the freedom of peaceful assembly and the freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions. This form of right should never require a sanction from a state.

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