"Minimizes their costs" can also be read as "minimizes their contributions back to the society they're benefiting greatly from", hence the ethical concerns.
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/03/...
[2] http://www.imore.com/apple-already-pays-1-out-every-40-tax-d...
In other words, doing what's absolutely necessary and expedient in order to make profit and not flagrantly disregarding certain portions of tax law?
And in the case of tech companies such as Apple, the "high paying jobs" bit comes with an extra bit of irony since they were doing the exact opposite to a criminal extent.
Color me unimpressed.
[1] http://www.salarylist.com/company/Apple-Salary.htm [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_S...
As Apple's aptly demonstrated, it doesn't pay those salaries for any other reason than that it must, and even then it will break the law to pay less.
Finally, most US Apple employees are located in California, where cost of living is substantially higher than most of the country. There's far less disparity in your figure when taking cost of living & the common academic pedigree of Apple's employees into account.
Or it could be that society is greatly benefiting from them: the people and companies that make the goods and services.
Of course there's the counter argument that corps can be a drag on society - for example, it's pretty clear that pesticides are causing significant problems for bee populations, yet the costs aren't paid by the big corps producing those (cough Monsanto). The big corps don't pay for their drag on society unless they're doing something illegal or due to negligence, in which case they usually pay a fine, which is a pittance, and still won't cover the overall losses society has. Banks are another example - does society really gain shit by bailing them out? Shouldn't they in fact, be paying way more - the same tax gambling establishments pay.
You are attempting to refute what was said by replacing it with a different argument. What you are touching on is what should happen as a result of theft and/or damage to property. I was pointing out that OPs original statement could be equally valid when reversed.