No, if you have mega corporations build entities outside your tax code, you have a case of countries having designed very attractive tax codes for corporations. Small countries especially have an incentive to do so, as a smaller percentage of tax of a larger percentage of capital going through their country counts for a lot per capita.
As companies benefit from this incentive, they lobby to keep it around. Very successfully.
So no, revamping the US tax code is (quite obviously) not an answer to Apple not paying tax in the EU. Having enforced taxation rules that prevent the race to the bottom is. Unfortunately taxation is not in the remit of the EU at the moment. Hence the back door approach through "unfair tax benefits".
We don't need trade deals that harmonize things so countries can, we really need tax deals that harmonize, or at least put minimum standards on taxes.
Why wouldn't something like that fly? Well because if the impression European observers have gotten over the last years is correct, then Apple et.al. basically own US policy on that point, to such a degree that the US actually threatened the Commission against ruling as it did.
So no, Apple did nothing illegal, but what is happening is clearly wrong, and Apple is lobbying to keep it that way. Heavily and successfully. And that is wrong.
For an example of an ethical stance a corporation could take here: IBM was, at least for a while, lobbying for abolishing software patents while at the same time owning a massive amount of them and registering new ones.
A structural fix would be to work towards making the US (and the EU, and all other) political system more resilient to lobbying pressure from powerful corporations.
But that is about as hard a problem as you are likely to find.
As companies benefit from this incentive, they lobby to keep it around. Very successfully.
So no, revamping the US tax code is (quite obviously) not an answer to Apple not paying tax in the EU. Having enforced taxation rules that prevent the race to the bottom is. Unfortunately taxation is not in the remit of the EU at the moment. Hence the back door approach through "unfair tax benefits".
We don't need trade deals that harmonize things so countries can, we really need tax deals that harmonize, or at least put minimum standards on taxes.
Why wouldn't something like that fly? Well because if the impression European observers have gotten over the last years is correct, then Apple et.al. basically own US policy on that point, to such a degree that the US actually threatened the Commission against ruling as it did.
So no, Apple did nothing illegal, but what is happening is clearly wrong, and Apple is lobbying to keep it that way. Heavily and successfully. And that is wrong.
For an example of an ethical stance a corporation could take here: IBM was, at least for a while, lobbying for abolishing software patents while at the same time owning a massive amount of them and registering new ones.
A structural fix would be to work towards making the US (and the EU, and all other) political system more resilient to lobbying pressure from powerful corporations.
But that is about as hard a problem as you are likely to find.