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Comment by wyager | Hacker News Reader

Why? I don't understand how businesses are morally obligated not to select the optimal tax environment for them.

After all, a very common defense for compulsory taxes is "if you don't like them, you can leave." Is that not what's happening here?

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I don't understand why Mark Cuban is morally obligated to invest in corporations doing things he doesn't like.

>I don't understand why Mark Cuban is morally obligated to invest in corporations doing things he doesn't like.

I never implied he was. I'm curious what his reasoning is.

You are curious why he thinks businesses are morally obligated not to select the optimal tax environment for them. Only he never indicated that he thinks that.

Your question should be: Why would Mark Cuban want to encourage companies to stay and pay taxes? The answer to that question is somewhat obvious.

They're certainly entitled to optimize their tax structure. It's the age old tension of capitalism where optimizing for the individual can harm the greater good. Joe Smith at the top of the river dams it not realizing/caring that it'll impact 100 farmers down the river. Cuban's just calling them out saying "Your actions will dry up the taxation pool resulting in me being squeezed elsewhere and forever so I don't want to encourage that behavior as it's not in my long term economic interests"

The point is that a lot of companies keep their funds in offshore tax shelters but have their de facto bases of operations in the US. They benefit from the advantages that the US government provides (stability, well-educated workforce, infrastructure, etc.) without paying their fair share of the cost (i. e. corporate taxes), and it's not like they can't afford it.

What's missing in your comment, though, is that many other developed countries offer those same benefits, and yet they don't tax foreign-earned income.

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