They all left the US so as not to pay taxes here. But, now what?
Any Business pay taxes in the country where it operate. Mutinational businesses are known for using creative bookkeeping to transfer their profits from where it is earned to somewhere the taxes are wery low. For example by 'buying' cheap stuff at an inflated price from their branch in a 'low tax' area. Thus they make their profit 'disappear' from the 'high Tax' area by transferring it to where taxes are lower.
Ps: The US business taxes are lower than in most western nations, but some poor countries speciallize in earning a lot of small taxes by offering very low tax rates. The city-nation of Monaco actually grew quite rich doing this in Europe.
What I understand of Apple is that there was a deal with Ireland so Apple would operate there without paying high tax. Ireland wanted people to have jobs and Apple wanted lower taxes. I do not know about the other firms. Ireland just wanted the jobs more and I think it is ok for them and Apple to make a deal. Monopolies are bad because they stand in the way of competition and we all know that and we stop those and stop price fixing and it should work the same for taxation, there should be no cartel that tells countries what taxes they have to charge.
I doubt it.
