I wonder if the goal is instead, simply to gather taxes from a broad base of society, from those people and companies most able to afford them, so that all pay

I wonder if the goal is instead, simply to gather taxes from a broad base of society, from those people and companies most able to afford them, so that all pay towards the cost of society. As these companies are still relying on governments and the society around them, but aren't paying the taxes associated with employees, we need other ways of getting money from them (and taxing profits is an increasingly bad way of getting money from companies, as they just arrange to have no profits).