Exactly. This is not Apples fault though, since they are not responsible for tax laws.
The EU could have been a vehicle to solve that problem together, but since then I lost my believe it could enact change. Ireland has probably interest in large cooperation staying in Dublin and it might really be in the interest of Irish citizens too...
Still, the current situation is just a grave case of injustice.
>Would you say that someone who finds a way to murder someone within the law isn't at fault in that murder?
This is a pretty ridiculous comparison. Murder isn't bad because it's illegal, it's bad because pretty much all ethical systems consider it a terrible thing to randomly kill someone. There's certainly a lot less agreement that a company is ethically obliged to pay a government a double-digit percentage of its earnings if it wants to sell people there things they want to buy.
No it is not ridiculous at all. What is ridiculous is the denial of the effects of the slow-violence of the ascendency of the rentier elite, and the subsequent plunder of the commons. [1] These rentiers pay very little taxes (if any) and park their illicit gains in offshore foreign tax havens. We are also in denial about the scary situation of the Precariat class, both in terms of the extreme inequality and class divide in global North (the USA, Europe, etc.) [2], as well as the divide that exists between the global North and the global South. [3]
The biggest factor of the ongoing plundering is the way the US empire enforces the corporatocracy's parasitic intellectual property rights claims:
"A globalised intellectual property rights system was immensely strengthened by TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) passed through the World Trade Organisation in 1994, shaped by a few US multinationals, backed by the US and UK governments. This has facilitated the commercialisation, privatisation and colonisation of ideas. Since 1994, the annual filing of patents has more than tripled, with the global stock of patents close to 12 million, each giving monopolistic control of some idea for 20 years or more.
Many patents result from publicly-funded research, diminishing the risk. But TRIPS allows corporations to receive monopolistic income for two decades, or use the patent to block others from producing something. Those claiming to believe in free markets should have opposed the trend, but reveal their class-based ideology by keeping quiet. There is evidence that the patent system hinders economic growth and innovation. It merely increases inequality and rentier capitalism. George Osborne, as Chancellor, made it even more blatant with his Patent Box tax break that in practice benefits multinationals coming to Britain if they have patented products, particularly Big Tech and Big Pharma. That tax break merely accentuated the plunder of the intellectual commons." [3]
I absolutely see the systemic inequality (and precarity) caused by the artificial scarcity mechanisms, lobbied for by the corporatocracy, as slow-violence and murder.
I say all this with the hope that we shift towards social production/Commons-based peer production, with a revolution of the parasitic rentier business models on digital assets, which make no sense anymore in a digital society where information now has a (near)-zero marginal cost of reproduction and transmission: Protocol Cooperativism.
I just compiled a list with companies paying more tax willingly:
If companies were allowed to murder people, I would feel staunchly more endangered.... but seriously, Ireland has lash tax laws to lure these giants into their country, this is no secret, we have several countries within the EU engaging in similar strategies.
I didn't say that the amount of taxes Apple pays isn't morally questionable. But you would still need to complain to representatives, because they are responsible.
So how would I go about determining whether a company I want to buy from doesn't do unethical things to avoid tax? It's everywhere and nowhere.
For larger companies it's just a cost/benefit exercise - there are professionals and an industry built around making and executing these decisions. If the rewards are large enough, they'll do it. How can I, as a consumer, work out if Apple is paying the correct tax on the app payment I make in the App Store?
But equally not all tax evasion is on the scale of Apple's. There is plenty going on at the other end of the spectrum. How can I, as a consumer, work out if my local window washers are paying the correct tax on their cash payments?
I would argue it's virtually impossible for a consumer to establish these facts. And that's the way it should be - we ought to be able to rely on specialist agencies to enforce the rules.
Well true, it would be unfair to put them all in one basket. But still, there is little use complaining about Apple (I don't usually hold back criticism here). We should hold those responsible creating these laws.
The EU could have been a vehicle to solve that problem together, but since then I lost my believe it could enact change. Ireland has probably interest in large cooperation staying in Dublin and it might really be in the interest of Irish citizens too...
Still, the current situation is just a grave case of injustice.