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The Guardian has a big series they are doing on tax evaders called Tax Gap.  In discussing the series, this article notes various responses they’ve gotten from across the political spectrum.  According to the Guardian, a number of responses “welcome the Guardian’s exposés as finally holding transnational corporations to account and asking them to pay their dues to the society from which they benefit.”

This kind of attitude is horribly misguided.  I’m not going to get into the debate over the actions of the companies the Guardian has reported on (most of it being legal, however).  Rather, I want to address this specific view that corporations owe society something, and that they are, to date, not supplying it.

The reasoning for this argument usually progresses as follows: “Corporation A has made X amount of profit in our country; they owe us!”

The unspoken implication of this reasoning is that Corporation A has provided nothing of value in return for its profit.  But this is false.  Profits are made by providing desired goods.  The people have benefited from Corporation A’s presence just as much, if not more, than Corporation A has – else it would have no profit.

There is a limited exception, which is the general benefit that rule of law provides to everyone.  However, there are two important caveats here.  First, the benefit is given to all, and corporations owe no more thanks for it than anyone else.  Second, and most important, the amount of tax revenue needed to actually fund this function of government is incredibly small compared to what governments today attempt to raise.  Even the biggest tax evading companies, if they still pay any taxes at all, are supplying enough funds to pay for their benefit from this.

The rest of the taxes collected go to funding massive welfare states and entitlement programs.  I’m not going to discuss the entirety of the moral and ethical arguments surrounding paying these taxes, other than to say that it is not sufficient to prove a moral obligation to pay for this simply by showing that a corporation has produced a profit.

political philosophy