The mindset is way different. I remember people in Irish tech slack bemused at the idea of saving for something that wasn’t retirement.

From that perspective, the U.S. operations of a European firm look to the U.S. taxman very similar to the U.S. operations of a U.S. firm, and vice-versa.

The revenues of such operations are usually easy to work out, but the cost-side can be pretty difficult if it's globally distributed and double-taxation treaties are also pretty difficult. This is where transfer pricing and flag of convenience shenanigans come in, allowing these megacorporations to evade the taxman.

It's not like the political will to fix this stuff is not there, but it requires coordinated action from nation-state players, which is not that easy to accomplish.

So, instead, you get these populist governments pandering to their base by going certain things alone in a way that almost certainly backfires economically.