I hope everyone realizes that corporations don't actually pay any taxes anywhere. You could tax a corporation at 50% - they'd just raise the price of their product to compensate. The consumer who buys their product would be the one paying that 50% tax. The exception is if there is a competitor in a country that doesn't have to pay that 50% tax. They can keep their prices low, undercut your company, then your company goes out of business and now your better off - right?
All taxes are paid by the consumer in the end. By taxing corporations the government has basically hired them as a tax collector, they collect the tax from their customers as part of their products price, and then forward that tax on to the government.
It's like those socialist policies where someone gets something for "free" from the government. They might be getting it for free, but the government neither produces a product it sells nor makes money any other way except through taxes. They pay for that "free" support to that person by taxing those who do not need that free support extra to cover the cost. The person paying that extra tax then has less money to use for what they want for themselves.
It's funny how - at least in the US - there's always this call that the rich have to pay their fair share, as if they aren't already. Here's the numbers from the Wall Street Journal. The bottom fifth of earners ($0 to $24K) are 4.5% of the income but pay nothing in taxes (they get back 2.2% more than they paid). The middle fifth ($47 to $89K) paid 5.9 % of all income taxes. And the top fifth (>$134K) paid 83.9% of income taxes. (http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-income-tax-1428674384).
Everybody always feels they pay too much taxes and that someone else should be paying more so they can pay less. I don't doubt there are issues. Some people and corporations definitely shelter their income in some ways to pay less taxes. If they are doing it in an illegal way they should be punished. But the reality is that for the most part, those who make more - pay more. And if someone's paying less than they should due to a legal loophole they are exploiting - don't complain about them, complain about your politicians - their the ones who wrote the rules.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
