> Why isn't the same standard applied to rich companies?
Prosecuting you is cheap and easy. Prosecuting a multinational billion dollar company is expensive and difficult.
One of the reasons it's difficult is that they're not (usually) outright evading tax. They're avoiding tax. The law is what's written, but also how that's interpreted by the courts. Sometimes the courts have not yet decided how to interpret a bit of the written law, and so companies will continue to use those bits in interesting ways.
Finally, some places have a "light touch" approach to regulation and they use courts as a measure of last resort, for the worst offenders. Everyone else will be persuaded to change their tax affairs. One consequence of this is that courts only rule on the obvious stuff, and we don't build up case law for the gray areas that get used in tax avoidance schemes.
I agree it's baffling that we let them get away with it. In the UK we think there are between £30bn and £120bn in tax that's evaded, avoided, or uncollected.
Prosecuting you is cheap and easy. Prosecuting a multinational billion dollar company is expensive and difficult.
One of the reasons it's difficult is that they're not (usually) outright evading tax. They're avoiding tax. The law is what's written, but also how that's interpreted by the courts. Sometimes the courts have not yet decided how to interpret a bit of the written law, and so companies will continue to use those bits in interesting ways.
Finally, some places have a "light touch" approach to regulation and they use courts as a measure of last resort, for the worst offenders. Everyone else will be persuaded to change their tax affairs. One consequence of this is that courts only rule on the obvious stuff, and we don't build up case law for the gray areas that get used in tax avoidance schemes.
I agree it's baffling that we let them get away with it. In the UK we think there are between £30bn and £120bn in tax that's evaded, avoided, or uncollected.