Two Maps That No Longer Agree
Here is what I keep coming back to: the map of where the servers hum and the map of where the profit lands stopped agreeing decades ago, and almost nobody redrew the second one on purpose. It drifted there, one tax ruling at a time. The useful habit is to hold both maps side by side and ask, for any given company, why the gap exists. Usually the answer is not conspiracy. It is arithmetic performed by people who read the statute closely. That is duller than a scandal and far more durable.
Knowledge check
A cloud company runs enormous server halls in a Nordic country for cheap hydropower and cold air, yet books the bulk of its European profit through a small office in Ireland. What are the two distinct location decisions at work here, and which one does tax policy mainly govern?
Show the answer
There are two separate decisions: where the physical infrastructure sits (Nordic country, chosen for power and cooling) and where the taxable profit is recognised (Ireland, chosen for its low corporate rate and treaty network). Tax policy mainly governs the second — profit location — while power, land, and climate govern the first. The two need not, and usually do not, coincide.