Countries are not companies.

Also your comparison is pretty bad. The direct cost per unit is pretty high for a car in a car company, the one for a company in a country is negligible. So it's more like a publisher selling digital goods, except that there's no copyright, preventing the others from selling exactly the same for a lower price.

Countries provide a service (infrastructure, social programs, court system) based on a price (taxes). There is a floor for those costs. There is a minimal amount of tax required to provide those services.

I think it's a bad idea to tell a country that they can't charge a lower price (taxes) in order to sell more business (have companies move there).

> There is a minimal amount of tax required to provide those services.

And you can go lower than that amount if you attract an abnormal amount of companies through an abnormally low tax.

You could have a lower tax rate and make it up with volume, but you can't go below a certain tax revenue and still keep a level of infrastructure or social programs.

Overall I'm happy that gov'ts have to compete for companies. It's a great way to force them to be more efficient. If they never have to worry about their spending, why would they ever control it?

If this is about efficiency can you explain me then how Ireland is more than 1000 times more efficient than other countries (0.005% effective tax rate in Ireland for Apple, pretty much everywhere you pay more than 5% in corporate taxes)?

You're ignoring the tax implications of additional jobs in Ireland.

My only point is that countries competing for business is a good thing, not a bad thing.

My point is that competition only leads to lower taxes and worse governmental service by the countries on a global scale (though single countries can benefit on the cost of other countries).

Even without competition Governments have the drive to keep taxes as low as possible to boost the economy and keep local businessmen happy.