EBay 'pays £1.2m in UK tax' on sales of £800m

They're working on it:

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/tax_avoidance_gaar.htm

That's often claimed, but I'm not convinced. Some people/businesses might move away because of being forced to pay tax at the same rate as everyone else. Most people/businesses won't, because most people don't choose where to live only by tax rate and most businesses aren't going to give up a market of 60+ million people. And frankly, if they're only paying a million or so in taxes at that size, good riddance to those who think they can do better elsewhere anyway.

It's very natural for private companies to reduce costs where possible, and reducing taxes is certainly a clever way to do so. This is, I believe, very positive, as it shows to the countries with high tax rates that they are missing out on tax dollars simply because they are making it way to expensive for large corporations to operate that way. This means any tax increase (like the ones suggested recently in France) will more likely hit the small and mid-sized players who do not benefit for the same know-how and scale to manage their tax cuts efficiently -> therefore reducing the actual benefit of further raising taxes. The fact that these practices remain legal puts a stop on inflating taxes gaps between countries as well.

By the way, avoiding taxes LEGALLY does not mean it is "ethically" corrupt to do so. I, for one, consider that taxation has very little ground when you see how much of the money the State collects is wasted in so many ways, through poor management, bad investments, poor efficiency, making war (that only a minority approves of), and seen how much power you have to change anything about it. On the contrary, limiting the growth of the amount of cash controlled by the State should be considered a good thing, in absolute terms.

Now some will say "Corporations elect legislators" except that isn't true at all, at least not in California. The only thing corporations and so called 'super pacs' can do is throw money at getting someone elected, and Meg Whitman proved that no matter how much money you throw at it you can't buy an election (at least not yet). The thing that gets bad politicians elected in California is voter apathy, you see most of our election races are decided by a few percent of the counted vote, and the counted vote is nearly always less than 60% of the registered voters, and sometimes less than 50%. In a number of races each year the incumbent runs unopposed or against an opponent who has no interest in actually being elected. If a small fraction of those apathetic voters actually voted, they could remove any and all of the incumbent politicians. But they don't. And they often don't because they have been told that their votes don't count, and that all of the elections are rigged by who has the most money. And that is something the corporations who like it this way, are very good at doing. Getting 'news' stories out to the voters about just how ineffective and worthless their votes are so don't bother getting out of bed, just stay home, it won't matter anyway.

The 99% could effect instant regime change in the US by actually voting. And they don't. And yes that is society's problem as you so aptly point out. But it has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism.