"Aggressive tax avoidance raises risks for investors", 28 Oct 2016

...For years, executives have defended these tax arrangements on the basis that they are legal. Some have even argued that they have a responsibility to shareholders to minimise tax liabilities...[A]fter the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, handed Apple a €13bn bill for unpaid taxes this summer, some began to question whether aggressive tax planning could pose a risk to them in the future.  Nordea Asset Management...has written to a number of companies...to warn that pressure from regulators and governments has increased overall risk for investors...“It will damage them in the long run much more than they think. They can’t just say they create jobs and just because they create jobs they can do anything they like..."...‘[H]ave you really properly considered the implications for brand value and your license to operate in society?’,” said a senior executive at one of the investment companies. He added that taxes pay for public infrastructure such as the roads on which Google is hoping to deploy its driverless cars. “They can’t expect everybody else to pay for the road and they just supply the driverless car.”...[Subscription required]