I have to disagree here : based in France, I sometimes do business in Belgium and I have to declare and pay VAT to Belgium for sales made there, while deducing

I have to disagree here : based in France, I sometimes do business in Belgium and I have to declare and pay VAT to Belgium for sales made there, while deducing the taxes paid locally to Belgium counterparts. That's the spirit of the law. But when you build an artificial business construct whose sole aim is to move earnings from a country to another while creating an artificial debt within an entity in a business group, just not to pay taxes, I don't see how it can be described by anything other than "Breaking the spirit of the law". I do know this is legal, but that only respects the letter of the law, not the spirit of it. The spirit of the free movements of items and people in Europe is made to promote trade and sales, not to promote the movement of money in order to evade taxes (that's actually the spirit of the tax heaven territories). In my view, the real problem when you do not respect the spirit of the law is that you do not respect the people themselves, even if you're not doing anything illegal. And I fear that some of those people, when they learn of another case like this one in 6 months, one year or two years, could consider using violence. In the past, several terrorist groups had targeted economic or corporate symbols (the Baader group for example), so we shouldn't forget histoire. These affairs will feed those enclined to follow that path again, but against what are now documented possibilities. That is why the states across the world need to act: it is not only about getting countries' money back, it is also to avoid future violence.