"EU law makes it easy for a company to do business anywhere in EU and only pay taxes in its headquarters, on the assumption that it doesn't matter a lot where t

"EU law makes it easy for a company to do business anywhere in EU and only pay taxes in its headquarters, on the assumption that it doesn't matter a lot where the company pays its taxes as long as it's inside the EU." US states have a set of policies and compacts so that corporations doing business in multiple states pay taxes to each state divided according to a formula. The corporation attributes income to each state in proportion to a weighted average of its sales in the state, its total employee compensation in the state, and its business capital and equipment present in the state. Then each state sets its tax rate and takes that fraction of the income attributed to the state. Over time, the states have created counting rules to prevent cheating the system. Europe may need to organize such a system if the other nations are really tired of being scooped by ie. There's still the classic scheme of putting intellectual property in a tax haven and paying franchise fees to a foreign subsidiary there to avoid having profits. They may want to try closing that loophole, too.