[expertentipp]

Acting as a union Germany, France, and UK would get everything, some hand outs for Spain and Italy, any profits skillfully funeled through Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, and Netherlands. The general population getting low quality tat "Made in China".

[emn13]

Somewhat aside: it's a bit of a shame the netherlands gets the blame in these tax-dodging stories, because the issue is actually that laws differ between countries (i.e. countries with laws identical to the netherlands aren't vulnerable to the tax dodge), and as it so happens, the netherlands' tax system is... not quite as crappy as that of most other countries. Still crappy, mind you. Just not as bad.

I.e. the appropriate solution would be for (e.g., to pick on a particularly bad tax code) the US and germany to simply dump their tax codes wholesale and copy the Netherlands, rather than the converse. Because seriously, some tax codes are just asking to be abused. Plug this hole, wait for the next one...

The cynical side of me doesn't think it's coincidental that the loopholes are so gaping. Oh well.