A reasonable point. But then the money is being taxed, because money is taxed when it is returned to shareholders.

It certainly isn't obvious that raising taxes is a net win. Experience to date is that a 100% tax rate is very bad, so logically there is a fair limit somewhere between 0% and 100% - ie, a specific fair rate that is not the word "more".

Certainly Ireland would like a slice of those billions of dollars - but if they try to take a big slice, Microsoft won't route the billions through Ireland. So it is a somewhat moot point in that specific case.

If you just want to redirect money from shareholders reduce corporate tax rates to 0% and tax dividends and capital gains more. Since they aren’t doing that they are admitting they want to tax money that corporations would re-invest.