Judge Learned Hand (a real person's name) wrote, "Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes."
I agree wholeheartedly.
I imagine that were I in their shoes, I'd be fairly confident that I could do more good for the world by private philanthropy, directed to causes that I felt compelling, than by fueling general government spending/avarice around the world.
I think that is beside the point. These companies are violating the spirit of law, not the letter of the law, when they avoid taxes. Take for example, the recent Pfizer/Allergen merger which happened merely for tax-avoidance reasons. It's legal, but it's totally uncalled for and it's clear to see why: a lot of what Pfizer stands on is from NIH-funded research, it's from us the tax-payers. Pfizer should have played fair by paying back, so NIH can fund even more studies, so that more people are employed, so that academia has more breathing room, etc.
The Internal Revenue Service (of the US) writes:
Avoidance of taxes is not a criminal offense. Any attempt to reduce, avoid, minimize, or alleviate taxes by legitimate means is permissible. The distinction between evasion and avoidance is fine yet definite. One who avoids tax does not conceal or misrepresent. He shapes events to reduce or eliminate tax liability and upon the happening of the events, makes a complete disclosure. Evasion, on the other hand, involves deceit, subterfuge, camouflage, concealment, some attempt to color or obscure events, or making things seem other than what they are.
Did this Dutch company purchase product/services from this Irish company?
Did these two companies merge and the surviving company was the non-US company?
Did this executive receive stock options on such-and-such date?
Those are all relatively easy questions of fact.
Should the surviving entity of the merger have been the US company? (According to whom? Or on what basis? To what end? Which benefits the investors the most? What did the shareholders vote to do with their company? Why should someone else judge that what they did was "legal but improper"?)
The real issue is simply that the US is relatively uncompetitive as a corporate domicile (on a rates and particularly on a "worldwide income basis") Attempts to patch the system without addressing this root issue are unlikely to succeed in a clean and sustainable fashion, IMO.
Most common tax avoidance strategies are possible due to very deliberate policies in each of the relevant jurisdictions. Its fine to claim that there is something wrong with the laws in question, but I haven't been able to identify one that strategies like the "double-dutch" violate the spirit of.
I don't think this sort of thing is about "giving back" however. I think it's something more ambitious than that: to "do something", do something transformative for the future.
Though Zuck's manifesto isn't well thought out yet, I'm stoked that he's committed to doing something with that $45B. Because hoarding up billions of dollars into family dynasties is pretty much doing nothing.
Well, his money isn't stuffed under sofa cushions, so it would bankers choosing what to invest in, but your point still stands. ;)
