I am aware of how this is done in large companies, and usually they set up their financial headquarters in countries with low corporate tax rates, such as Switzerland in Europe, or Singapore in Asia, then build up connections with their operations in surrounding countries using "commissionaries" (not sure if the english term is correct) status, meaning that most revenues are transferred to the financial headquarter and then the headquarters pays back for the costs of doing business (salaries, rents, material expenses) to each country operations. This saves litteraly billions of tax dollars and it is perfectly legal where it is practiced. Where do you think politicians put their money, by the way?
It's very natural for private companies to reduce costs where possible, and reducing taxes is certainly a clever way to do so. This is, I believe, very positive, as it shows to the countries with high tax rates that they are missing out on tax dollars simply because they are making it way to expensive for large corporations to operate that way. This means any tax increase (like the ones suggested recently in France) will more likely hit the small and mid-sized players who do not benefit for the same know-how and scale to manage their tax cuts efficiently -> therefore reducing the actual benefit of further raising taxes. The fact that these practices remain legal puts a stop on inflating taxes gaps between countries as well.
By the way, avoiding taxes LEGALLY does not mean it is "ethically" corrupt to do so. I, for one, consider that taxation has very little ground when you see how much of the money the State collects is wasted in so many ways, through poor management, bad investments, poor efficiency, making war (that only a minority approves of), and seen how much power you have to change anything about it. On the contrary, limiting the growth of the amount of cash controlled by the State should be considered a good thing, in absolute terms.
It's very natural for private companies to reduce costs where possible, and reducing taxes is certainly a clever way to do so. This is, I believe, very positive, as it shows to the countries with high tax rates that they are missing out on tax dollars simply because they are making it way to expensive for large corporations to operate that way. This means any tax increase (like the ones suggested recently in France) will more likely hit the small and mid-sized players who do not benefit for the same know-how and scale to manage their tax cuts efficiently -> therefore reducing the actual benefit of further raising taxes. The fact that these practices remain legal puts a stop on inflating taxes gaps between countries as well.
By the way, avoiding taxes LEGALLY does not mean it is "ethically" corrupt to do so. I, for one, consider that taxation has very little ground when you see how much of the money the State collects is wasted in so many ways, through poor management, bad investments, poor efficiency, making war (that only a minority approves of), and seen how much power you have to change anything about it. On the contrary, limiting the growth of the amount of cash controlled by the State should be considered a good thing, in absolute terms.