"dear David, while of course you are right about the global tech corporation you have left something out: tax jurisdiction shopping. when companies earn a lot of money from royalties or operations or lease fees they make sure these are booked in low taxation countries (or Caribbean Islands) to maximize return. It is when essentially no tax has been paid anywhere that there is some justification for seeking to get the companies to repatriate their cash cache. It is not just cyclical risks that lead to these dodges. It is also just good old plain tax avoidance.

"And not just tech. what would you say if Barclays were to expatriate itself from Britain so it can avoid the limits on exec pay and the ring fencing of retail banking and the higher reserve requirements the FSA wants to impose, to say nothing of taxes And what of HSBC which landed in Britain only after it got to feeling uncomfortable in Hong Kong after the Thatcher turnover agreement. Why are all the Lloyds reinsurance companies headquartered in Bermuda?

"Consider oil services. Schlumberger, founded by Frenchmen, run from Houston, is incorporated in the Dutch Antilles. I wonder why? Transocean, a company run by Americans which leased its rig to BP for the Macondo Gulf of Mexico drilling in the US, is Swiss. Zug is a funny place to be from when you rent out offshore ocean oil drilling vessels. Where are the Swiss oceans anyway?

"And not just banks and oil exploration. What of SAB Miller which felt uncomfortable in South Africa and moved to Blighty and now may wind up buying an Australian favorite of Barry Mackenzie's in Private Eye, Fosters."

David Fuller's view Many thanks for this detailed and informative email.

Tax avoidance is legal, as you know, unlike tax evasion. It may not always be fair, which is Warren Buffett's point regarding the seriously wealthy. However, the world is never "fair" - which in economic terms some people would regard as equal means, regardless of ability and effort - unless we level everyone down to the lowest common denominator and live in fear of Big Brother, which does not sound very fair to me.

The key debatable point, in my view, is in the first sentence of my response to yesterday's lead item:

My view - In the global economy, successful multinational companies are close to being autonomies, answerable mainly to their shareholders and employees.

I am not troubled by this, provided these companies remain law abiding wherever they operate. However, I imaging some readers may disagree, and some people on the far-left would like to plunder the balance sheets of these successful companies. I do not feel that corporate autonomies should have any greater loyalty to their mother countries, than to the other nations where an increasing proportion of their business is conducted.

If the USA or any other country wants the autonomies to repatriate more of their cash and invest locally, the policy of using a threatening stick will not work. Instead, they will need to offer juicy carrots. This policy can serve both regional and corporate interests.

Governments, from national to regional councils, are seldom run as responsibly and productively as successful multinational companies, in my observation. It is also in the long-term commercial interests of these corporate autonomies to be good global citizens. This is in the interests of both shareholders and the communities where they do business.

I am making a one-off exception my usual policy of anonymity with emails in mentioning that this one above is from my friend Vivian Lewis of Global Investing fame. Vivian will be a delegate at TCS in NYC, in November.