Taxing international corporations - Far, far more than lost tax cash at stake

A PHRASE from less than a decade ago that came to sound like warning drums confirming that the barbarians had indeed breached the gates was “too big to fail”. 

It was the get-out-of-jail card that somehow stood, and still stands, between the financial sector and regulatory authorities responsible for the massive destruction of wealth and the economic chaos that changed our world.

The philosophy that phrase celebrates, the one that yet again gives two fingers to the idea that we really live in a we’re-all-in-this-together society, can add a new phrase to its lexicon after last week’s UK tax settlement — described by critics as a “sweetheart deal” — between Google’s parent company Alpahabet and the British tax authorities. The new, newish anyway, phrase is “too big to tax”.