> "because we like them and we feel a patriotic/moral/righteous duty to help them"
Sounds like an abusive relationship. Again, if a company wants to be bailed out by the tax payer, I don't think it's a stretch to ask that they pay taxes.
Otherwise it's like me, a foreigner with no connection to Denmark other than that I've 'helped the economy' when I went on vacation there last year asking for a bailout.
> But if the answer is "to help workers keep their jobs", then the distinction might not be relevant.
In many European countries, social safety nets exist so you don't have to reward cancerous businesses for terrible business practices, while still ensuring individuals are looked after in the event things go sideways.
Just replying to myself, I was incredulous that cruise lines were requesting a bailout from the US taxpayer. They've been registering their ships in Panama, the BVI and Liberia to avoid minimum wage law, labor laws and paying taxes. They make staff work 8-20 hours a day 7 days a week for months on end, paying well below market wages. [1]
Need a bailout? Ask the Liberians.
Similarly, these companies should be asking for bailouts from the tax havens in which they are registered. Surely all those "registration fees" they've been paying to avoid taxes are being kept safely for just such an occasion.
None of this is making me feel super patriotic/moral/righteous duty for them.
> In many European countries, social safety nets exist
They only exist because they are funded by taxing economic activity. If governments could just will them into being without restriction than every country in the world could have European level social safety nets.
If economic activity declines, so does the money faucet funding the social safety nets.
Sounds like an abusive relationship. Again, if a company wants to be bailed out by the tax payer, I don't think it's a stretch to ask that they pay taxes.
Otherwise it's like me, a foreigner with no connection to Denmark other than that I've 'helped the economy' when I went on vacation there last year asking for a bailout.
> But if the answer is "to help workers keep their jobs", then the distinction might not be relevant.
In many European countries, social safety nets exist so you don't have to reward cancerous businesses for terrible business practices, while still ensuring individuals are looked after in the event things go sideways.