And if you don't want to be simplistic, then you have to admit that business consists of more than just the owners and shareholders. It also consists of employees, customers/consumers, AND the society that the business operates within. There's a reason that Apple has more stores in developed countries than undeveloped ones.
Yes, but having stores in developed countries without paying appropriate levels of corporate taxation means that Apple (and similar companies) are benefitting from the security, stability (political and socio-economic, cultural and ethnic stability) of a stable, comfortable - and usually democratic - society without contributing anything to the cost of ensuring that these societies are able to continue to remain so.
In other words, wealthy multinational corporations - such as Apple - frequently behave as though they had no responsibility to contribute to conditions that ensure continued financial stability in the countries where they do business.
These are conditions - often hard won - such as the protection accorded to the law of contract, eventual controls and limits on the power of sovereigns - that have evolved over many centuries of political and economic development, and the consequent, or subsequent, development of representative forms of the expression of political power - in other words, elected assemblies with a growing power to tax and legislate, and thus, extend the freedoms enjoyed by the population who elected them - often followed in their wake.
In essence, many of these corporations want the advantages of a modern western democracy - the sort that guarantees market stability and financial security - with the winsome lack of regulation you find in micro states run along the lines of professional kleptocracies where casino economics replace rigorous public policy. They want the security of a western market framework, - preferably deregulated - along with the lack of oversight found in those funny little islands or micro states where the laundering and rolling over of money is a profitable enterprise.
With the growth of multinational corporations, national legislation - and national governments - is often - and are often - quite inadequate to ensure compliance let alone a degree of accountability or control of some of these companies.
Indeed, some of these corporations are now so wealthy and powerful - and unaccountable to anyone save themselves and their shareholders - that they seek to persuade, dictate and occasionally bribe or bully elected governments to carry out policies beneficial to them.
There is no reason on earth for Governments to have to subordinate public policy to the needs of powerful multinational corporations; Governments are answerable to their citizens, - via the ballot box - and their role is public policy and the public good - whereas corporations are answerable to none but their shareholders, and there is no reason whatsoever for this to be elevated to a principle that supersedes public policy.
If such corporations want the benefits of a safe, secure, and stable economic environment in which to generate profit, I can see no reason on earth why they shouldn't pay for it. Handsomely. Their taxes may help secure such an environment, not least the sort of environment where citizens may be able to afford to purchase their products.
I suppose that this is one of those issues where there are stark differences of opinion on Both Sides Of The Pond.
My sense - not least reading this thread - is that many Americans view Government with suspicion but have a positive and bizarrely benign view of corporations; in Europe, we tend to be more suspicious of corporations, and see Government in a more benevolent light.
However, having said that, I do think that the US is a more dangerously divided society - in class terms - than it has been for a long time. Compelling those bodies which benefit from the advantages of such societies to pay their fair share of taxes will - to my mind at least - perhaps contribute to helping to make the US a less unequal society, with better life chances for those who are less well off.
Hence, my complete approval of Mr Wozniak's attempts to start a debate on this matter, with these remarks.
