How can we tax footloose multinationals? :: Mmegi Online

Apple, Google, Starbucks, and companies like them all claim to be socially responsible, but the first element of social responsibility should be paying your fair share of tax. Instead, globalisation has enabled multinationals to encourage a race to the bottom, threatening the revenues that governments need to function properly. Nobel laureate, JOSEPH STIGLITZ* writes

NEW YORK: In the last few years, globalisation has come under renewed attack. Some of the criticisms may be misplaced, but one is spot on: globalisation has enabled large multinationals, like Apple, Google, and Starbucks, to avoid paying tax.

Apple has become the poster child for corporate tax avoidance, with its legal claim that a few hundred people working in Ireland were the real source of its profits, and then striking a deal with that country’s government that resulted in its paying a tax amounting to .005% of its profit.

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