My view is:
- It makes sense for governments to provide healthcare, education, police, the military, welfare for the elderly/poor/disabled, basic infrastructure like electricity, water, etc. These things don't tend to work well when privatized, and humanity has advanced to the point where we have sufficient productivity/technological advances that we can (and should) provide these things for everyone
- These things are expensive, extensive taxes are required to pay for them
- I believe progressive taxation is the most reasonable way to pay for these things. The poor pay next to no taxes, and as you get wealthier, a greater percentage of that wealth gets taxed, because you get less marginal benefit from it anyways. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of ~$180 billion. Apple has a cash reserves of ~$250 billion. Take $100 billion from either of them, and there's virtually no impact on the person or corporation. Raise those same taxes from ONE MILLION middle class individuals and small business ($100,000 each), and you utterly destroy those MILLION individuals/small-businesses. Tax revenue must come from somewhere, more of it should come from the uber-wealthy
- There are many forms of taxes, but ultimately they're almost all paid by individuals and businesses. For the lower, middle, and "normal" upper classes, as well as small to reasonably large businesses, progressive taxation is a reality. Those with the ability to pay more, do pay more
- However, for the uber-wealthy individuals and businesses, those with almost unimaginable wealth, they have the power and influence to literally alter the law for their own benefit. They use this power/influence to pay near-zero tax. But the services of government still need to be paid for, so it comes from everyone else, for whom taxes are actually a big deal, instead of the insanely wealthy, who could easily afford to pay massive taxes with basically no impact, but prefer to be even more insanely wealthy
When the altering of laws to favour the uber-wealthy happens through pure corruption (like literally paying off lawmakers, behind closed doors), it's obviously unethical. When it happens through more legalized corruption, like making big donations to political candidates, then using your position of influence to change laws, I think most agree this is still unethical. It's a bit more arguable when it happens via one country enabling gaping tax evasion, for the benefit of that country, at the cost of all other countries. From my point of view, it's nearly as bad - you're helping the richest of the rich evade taxes, normal people and smaller businesses are burdened with higher tax load to make up for it, and it's done for the good of a few over the good of the many. The scale is different, one-country vs. all-other-countries, instead of few-citizens vs. all-other-citizens, or few-businesses vs. all-other-businesses, but the impact is similar. The selfishness of a few leads to tax loopholes for the richest of the rich, and everyone else pays for it.
Obviously, the fight to close tax loopholes for the uber-wealthy is a tough one - they're so powerful, and they only have to win over a handful of lawmakers to evade taxes. But it's a fight worth fighting, IMO. The status quo, where the uber-wealthy pay minimal taxes, and the tax burden falls on everyone else, is leading to excessive wealth inequality, that is only growing over time.