Re: I still can't understand ...
Ah, sorry I explained that poorly. What I meant was:
If I, in the UK, buy a camera from a company in Singapore, they make some profit and I make a saving. Their profit is taxed in Singapore as corporation tax. I have to pay VAT on the camera, and that goes to the UK. If I am a reseller, I charge VAT on the sale, and reclaim the VAT on the purchase. I therefore pay UK tax at the UK VAT rate ON MY PROFIT, regardless of my revenue.
If, for taxation purposes, a virtual product were still a product, as in your example, the UK company would pay corporation tax, at the same (UK) rate, on their profits, regardless of where their sales occurred. The Australian buyer pays sales tax at the same rate he would if he were buying in a store in AUS.
Now, if a UK subsidiary company choose to operate at a loss by paying a huge royalty fee to a parent in a nation with lower corporation tax, that would still be allowed. But they have to pay VAT on the 'virtual product' which is a 'licence to trade under that name for one year' and, because they obviously don't sell this licence onwards, they have effectively paid tax, at the VAT rate, on all their profit. If VAT and corporation tax were charged at the same rate, it wouldn't matter whether they declared the UK operating profits as having really occurred in the UK or not, they'd still being paying the same amount.
Again I suspect my simplistic approach is due to ignorance, but I'm interested to know what I am missing.