Re: Government
The thing to remember is that tax avoidance is COMPLETELY LEGAL, and I bet few people here in this forum do not use at least one tax avoidance scheme - even if they don't realise it. Got a company pension ? Got a private pension ? Got a government endorsed ISA ? All of those are tax avoidance schemes - and completely legal.
It is true that a very small outfit will struggle to match the tax advantages that come with being a massive multinational with the flexibility to move its profits around. But all the same techniques are available to the smaller business if they wanted to take advantage of them.
The issue is scale. In the same way that a "man with a van" haulage operation based well oop north could not compete with a massive international that might be able to keep moving it's wagons around to support flagging them in a foreign country for better tax treatment.
Changing the way tax works in an international setting means getting the agreement of (most of) the rest of the countries in the world. That's difficult to do, as at least some of the key players would be losers. And even if you manage to set new rules, you can be sure the big multinationals will have come up with new avoidance schemes before the rules come into effect.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
