Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, argued that the pursuit of private interests – profits – will invariably promote the common good. That may be true in some situations, but obviously not always. Just as banks’ pursuit of profit led to the 2008 financial crisis, it was Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies’ greed that produced the opioid crisis, and Texaco’s support of the Franco regime that helped the fascists triumph in the Spanish Civil War.
This litany of perfidy could easily be extended. But among the worst abuses committed by greedy corporations today is childhood slavery. Chocolate lovers around the world may not know it, but some of their guilty pleasures may have been produced by child slaves.
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It appears that the international community is moving toward what many are calling a historic agreement to set a global minimum tax rate on multinational corporations (MNCs). It’s about time – but it may not be enough.
Under the existing rules, firms can escape paying their fair share of taxes by booking their income in low-tax jurisdictions. In some cases, if the law doesn’t permit them to pretend that enough of their income originates in some tax haven, they have moved some parts of their business to these jurisdictions.
Apple became the poster child of tax avoidance by booking profits made on its European operations to Ireland, and then using another loophole to avoid most of Ireland’s notorious 12.5% tax rate. But Apple was hardly alone in turning the ingenuity behind products we love toward avoidance of taxes on the profits earned from selling them to us. They rightly claimed that they were paying every dollar due; they were simply taking full advantage of what the sys