This weekend the leaders of the G20 nations met in Brisbane and corporate tax avoidance, or ‘minimisation’ was on the agenda. There has been outrage in recent months as it was revealed that large companies have routed money through complex structures in countries such as Luxembourg in order to minimise the tax. The objective is to maximise profits for shareholders and minimise a company’s contribution to the community benefits derived from tax payments.

Some of the companies are global household names such as Ikea, Pepsi, Deutsche Bank and use these methods. Apple and Amazon have been at centre of similar controversies in the recent past. While many commentators are focused on the impact on the public purse of those countries where revenue is generated, very few are asking why the dominant value of profit maximisation is allowed to continue to reign. It is just assumed that is what companies will do and markets will accept it.

Why is profit maximisation more important than paying reasonable tax to help develop the countries from which corporations derive their revenue? Why does short-term earnings results designed for the investment markets get more senior management attention than long-term investment in the future of societies for hospitals and health care, schools, roads, public transport and the like? This community investment through tax payments also benefits the very same companies which use the infrastructure networks such as roads, rail, airlines and ports, and whose employees and their families go to the schools and use the hospitals.

It is because those in senior management at these companies and those that control the investment decisions at large institutional investment groups, prioritise a very narrow set of short-term profit-driven values over the longer term goals of a rise in living standards for all. We know that they share the same values because investment funds participate in the same tax minimisation schemes. Public investment funds from Canada, Australia, as well as investment giants like Citigroup, Credit Suisse, ABN Amro, AIG, Dexia, Fidelity, Schroders, State Street and UBS were also on the list of tax offenders released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

These investment houses manage billions of dollars of citizen’s retirement and other savings through a variety of mutual funds. And because they have the power to make the investment decision, they impose a narrow set of profit-driven values on their decision. They do very little to gather the views of the citizen investors or reflect them in the investment decisions.

As those who provide the money for these funds to invest, we have a responsibility to make it clear that we are not only the ultimate shareholders of these funds who want a long-term return from our savings but we are also the people who use the infrastructure, the schools and the hospitals that improve our societies’ standards of living, as opposed to wanting our investments to produce a short-term return to boost the bonus payments of our professional money managers.