I don't think that paying only the taxes that you owe legally is ethically wrong.

The problem is the overly complex tax code that allows entities with deep pockets to find loopholes that don't exist for normal citizens. Solving the problem of big companies not paying the taxes you'd expect them to pay has to involve changing the law.

Taking advantage of loopholes and keeping it secret is still wrong. They should be publicizing the loopholes and trying to get the law changed.

You can't say "it's the law that needs to be changed" while avoiding doing anything to change the law.

The big tech companies should have tax transparency reports explaining what they do and why it's legal.

> ...allows entities with deep pockets to find loopholes that don't exist for normal citizens.

The biggest "loophole" is employer payed benefits are untaxed while the same benefits payed out of pocket by the employee are taxed. The political prospects for changing the law here seem bleak.

You can see this played out in the current tax reform debate. Most of the added/eliminated taxes fall in the "eliminating loopholes" category. Here on HN, the proposals have been criticized on the whole.

Is it ethically wrong when big companies influence the tax code itself? Because that's what happens now. Loopholes are created, not just "found".

Not sure how this is at all exclusive to ""tech"".

But the big tech names are the most egregious offenders: Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber... how does that mesh with a brand that claims to be about saving the world, community, yadda yadda?

Is Uber really a more egregious offender than Exxon-Mobil? I am not at all defending large "tech" companies but to pretend that they are the first (or the worst) when it comes to dodging taxed is rather silly. Exploiting every last tax loophole possible is something common to all sufficiently wealthy individuals/corporations—even the queen herself is in on it.

> to pretend that they are the first (or the worst) when it comes to dodging taxed is rather silly.

Who did? Name one actual instance where one actual person did claim they're the first to ever do that.

Sure, many more people think they're the worst than the first so maybe i should have swapped the order and the parentheses. However, the entire present conversation around "tech" is rooted in an implicit waryness of the novelty of the whole enterprise.

Because the biggest companies on the planet are tech now, mostly. They're all enormously profitable and pay a scandalously low rate of tax.

I feel like this has slipped many by. People consider Big Oil or Big Pharma the evil huge companies whereas tech is still the rebellious underdog changing the world.