Hiring KPMG, Deloitte, Earnst & Young, or PWC isn't cheap.

And we have a really weird system here. These big four firms sent some of their accountants to help the government create tax laws. They then exploited the loopholes in the tax laws they had created.

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/26/accountancy-f...)

EDIT: Here's some discussion of the PAC report that's more balanced: (http://www.ion.icaew.com/TaxFaculty/26745)

Said "weird" system actually aligns with their incentives perfectly. Create a system of laws that can be exploited, but only through the advisory services of accounting professionals like themselves. Complexity creates exploitation opportunities, which results in more monetary rewards for themselves.

Right, but the weird part is that the government is complicit in this. They have no such incentives.

However, Amazon have this unfair advantage as well as google. IIRC.

Or for small service companies to claim they do not do 'sales' in a country when their business is done there.

It is not just a business address.

It's incredibly stupid to complain about a company legally reducing (saying they are avoiding is unfair since that implies illegal actions) their tax liability when you are the one of those responsible for making it possible.

But I agree it's the government's responsibility to fix this.

--edit-- Two more things. Firstly avoiding does not really imply illegal. Evasion tends to be the illegal one.

Secondly, where google are concerned, there does seem to be some doubt over which country various sales activities could actually be said to have happened in, so there may be grounds for an investigation and they may be found to have been in contravention of the law.

If Google broke the law, then sure, punish them for it. At that point one can say they evaded paying their "fair share" of taxes and did not act in good faith.

But in the context of the discussion, avoiding taxes is being used in a negative way by implying that the companies are not paying taxes that they should be paying by whatever criteria society dreams up, such as "fair share". I simply object to this characterization since these companies are following the law until a tax court says otherwise.

But that's an important point.

Traditionally "Tax evasion" was legal, and "tax avoidance" was normal, acceptable, and purely legal.

The weird accounting practices of some of these big firms are pushing a language change.

"Tax evasion" is clearly illegal.

"Tax planning" is clearly legal and acceptable.

"Tax avoidance" is using probably legal but weird methods to reduce (beyond any sensible amount) the tax burden of a company or very rich individual.