Many people will jump and say the multinationals should be paying more taxes so go get them. The problem that arises is a legal one. Since a corporation is not a living person, then where was it born for tax purposes? If we suddenly change the rules and say corporations owe worldwide taxes in every country, the world economy will suddenly collapse and unemployment would soar. Ireland is going after the “Ghost Companies” as they are known, but then how can companies function? Let’s say all of Apple’s products are produced and assembled in one place – China. Then, should taxation be based upon where a product is manufactured or where the company is domiciled? Can Ireland then arbitrarily say 100% of all profit after manufacture should be taxed then in Ireland? Who gets what portion?
Taxation is altering everything and setting one country against another as they are all in need of money to pay the bankers. We MUST eliminate taxation (except local municipal) and run federal governments as a percentage of GDP by creating new money for that purpose. We are hunting everything down, and yet we still borrow because governments always spend more than they collect. Limit spending to a fixed percentage say 5% of GDP and move on. This is getting insane.
