I'm interested to hear your opinion on this, but you've got to actually explain, not merely state differences and conclusions.

> Who says I can't articulate the difference?

The comments have not included one so far. What you've said is that one thing is not the same as another, but you have not included an explanation of what difference you see there as being, or how that difference leads to one thing being moral and the other immoral.

> What is lawful != what is ethical.

> The effort a corporation expends to avoid taxes, such as those under scrutiny in the matter at hand, are not at all homologous to electing to take a dependent exemption for an individual citizen.

> Reducing one's tax bill via deductions and elected credits is not the same as going to great lengths to create special structures that enable a corporation to avoid tax bills altogether.

You've said they're not the same, but you haven't explained what the differences are, why the differences are significant to this discussion, and how the differences should support your analysis of the morality. Your comments leave it to the reader to infer what the differences are between one thing or another, and draw conclusions from them that support your point.

I read your comments as expressing the point, "These things are not the same, and one of them is immoral, and if you don't agree with me already then I don't see the point of explaining." It's fine if you want to hold that opinion. However, someone wrote a comment disagreeing with that point of view, and you've attempted to rebut it. People write comments on HN because they like to analyze and understand, but your comments don't include more than a pure opinion on your part that one of these behaviors is wrong without saying why. It's not very constructive to share an opinion without being willing to explain why you think it, especially given that you responded to people who sought to discuss it.

I think a strong argument was made against your point. I will restate it: "Governments have the ability to levy taxes. If they need money they should levy a tax. It's that simple. There is no 'right amount' that a company should be paying that is more than the law requires them to pay."

I think that's a pretty good point - don't you? What is your argument for why companies should pay more tax than they're required to pay? You seem to believe that there's some morally correct amount of tax that companies are morally obligated to pay, other than the amount specified by law, but you haven't provided a justification for why that is so, or for determining what that amount is. You have just said that corporate tax avoidance is different (in an unstated way) from individual tax avoidance. Even if we agreed that they're different in many significant ways, the morality or immorality of tax avoidance does not automatically follow from recognition of differences.

You could articulate your point better by starting with, "It's immoral for corporations to seek to lower their tax burden because..." and then follow up by explaining, "It's still moral for individuals and sole proprietors to seek to lower their tax burden because ... " It would illustrate the issue much better to explain what the essential difference is, and why that difference leads to it being immoral. What are the criteria for tax avoidance in an organization or company to be immoral?