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Well no, people's argument was that you can't tax unfairly or it'll put companies out of business. i.e. a turnover tax is a silly idea, and that got pointed out. Fair enough that you didn't remember, but you're still in this post sort of admitting your error, while also trying to keep making the same argument - so talking of cake and eating + can't.

Nobody has defended tax evasion. Which is illegal. Most people accept that there's too much avoidance. But the realists get pissed off when everyone defaults to emotional arguments.

There is never going to be a good, easy solution to this. Even if all the accountants at MegaCorp inc. were as honest as the day is long and 100% transparent and public spirited and actively trying to get all their taxes paid to the right government at the right time, it would probably be impossible to get it right. Big corporations do introduce artificial complexity, but there's also a lot of real complexity too. How do you allocate R&D done in the US (or India or the UK) against the profits earned in other countries, or the public image of the business, or the massive cost of tens/hundreds of datacentres or whatever? It genuinely isn't easy. And that's before the EU Single Market comes into it. Which has costs (like corp tax income) as well as benefits.

Whatever way we try to solve the unintended consequences of tax (or any other thing society does), we'll end up with other unintended consequences.

I feel dirty even suggesting this, but Donald Trump may actually provide some of the solution here. He's been talking about changing US corporation tax rules. If he gets it done, that may change the way US companies behave. And stop them being so desperate to stash cash in Ireland and then the Caymans. At the moment they pay 35% tax on their profits, and then their shareholders pay a further 30-40% tax on dividends. So many US companies don't pay dividends. In comparison ours pay about 20%, plus 20%-odd on the divvies.

Worse they're allowed to defer their tax on foreign profits, if they don't bring them back into the country. So they just don't. That's why Apple have over $100bn in cash held abroad and borrow money in the US to pay their dividends.

Give them a lower tax rate so their shareholders start demanding dividends, and stop them from deferring tax until profits are repatriated, and the incentive for these behaviours massively reduces. Then that cash might get used, and boost the economy too.

I admit this assumes Trump being able to persuade Congress to do much of anything, and it being competently handled. So perhaps best not holding your breath...