I don't follow that line of reasoning. Assuming it's fundamentally immoral, it remains fundamentally immoral for a company.
If a person did it, we'd call it immoral. When it's a group of persons doing it, we'd call it immoral. But when it's one group of persons doing it -- the employees -- in the name of another group -- the owners -- it's suddenly unethical not to do it? I don't get that.
I guess it'd be unethical for the employees to act one way when they know the owners want them to act another way. But if the owners willingly let the company act immorally, then they are themselves acting immorally. Which is, of course, the case.
The problem is that shareholders include everyday people who have money in mutual funds who invest that money in large cap corporations who depend on management of those corporations to maximize their shareholder value at the expense of all outside, non-investors. Including employees, governments etc. as long as it is legal and maximizes long term shareholder value.
It is a fundamental shift in finance theory that occurred about 25-30 years ago. Many people will argue that management should put the shareholders above all else. I think there is a somewhat muted, but real discussion happening in a lot of places that the currently accepted system may not be the best one, but for now, management has a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.
It's a problem because it spreads out the blame on a lot of people. Management can point to the shareholders. The shareholders argue they each own just a small bit of the shares and aren't involved at all in the day to day business. It's a systemic fault.
Yes, I agree with you. But it is a current fact. I have no idea what the solution is, but when a system works conveniently for so many people it is unlikely to change.
The crazy thing is that people "blame evil corporations" while having almost 100% of their retirement invested in the corporations they dispise without even realizing it.
Unless you have no savings, you are likely a shareholder in a number of companies which are using transfer pricing to save on taxes.
You are much more likely an investor in a unit fund that itself holds shares. As a result you have no say over anything, and pretty much no alternative but to join one of these schemes.
The point is:
You invest in funds that invest in companies that use transfer pricing to minimize taxes.
You could say you don't want to be invested by not investing in mutual funds/ETFs etc.
But, almost every American with savings does invest and is the direct beneficiary of transfer pricing.
You and others could decide to allocate a portion of your capital gains back to the UK government as a gift, but I think that is "very, very unlikely".
[Also] One strategy could be to only choose small cap names, then you are unlikely to hear of any of the "evil" things the corporations you own are doing... Obviously that would create problems with risk in your portfolio.
Would we? It's pretty rare that I hear of someone being accused of immorality for taking every tax deduction allowed by law. If people want to complain about tax deductions, they usually say that the law is bad, not the people who follow it as written.
I was in the UK briefly this summer, but learned nothing relevant to this discussion while there. I didn't know who Jimmy Carr is until this post; it seems that the major controversy stems from the fact that he criticized others for avoiding taxes, then did the same thing himself.
I think countries should arrange their tax rates and accounting rules so that there's little incentive to avoid taxes by moving money around, but I don't think it's in any way immoral to pay as little tax as the law requires. Governments are not charities and do not run on donations.
If a person did it, we'd call it immoral. When it's a group of persons doing it, we'd call it immoral. But when it's one group of persons doing it -- the employees -- in the name of another group -- the owners -- it's suddenly unethical not to do it? I don't get that.
You don't strike me as having a libertarian bent, but that's essentially the argument used to justify taxes as immoral:
If I steal from my neighbor and distribute the proceeds to the community, including my neighbor and myself, it's theft – immoral.
But if the whole community gets together and vote to steal from my neighbor, and his neighbor, and everyone's neighbor, and split up the proceeds – that's suddenly moral?
Point is, not all arguments generalize from "a person doing it to" to a group doing the same thing collectively.
Your mistake is in your assumption: different people have different values of "fundamentally immoral". Different people do not have different values of "illegal".
Sure. That just means people have different moral evaluations of a company's conduct. It doesn't mean people shouldn't or can't sensibly have such evaluations.
If a person did it, we'd call it immoral. When it's a group of persons doing it, we'd call it immoral. But when it's one group of persons doing it -- the employees -- in the name of another group -- the owners -- it's suddenly unethical not to do it? I don't get that.
I guess it'd be unethical for the employees to act one way when they know the owners want them to act another way. But if the owners willingly let the company act immorally, then they are themselves acting immorally. Which is, of course, the case.