Legal But Not Ethical?

There are many screens that investors use to select investments. One screen is socially responsible, or ethical, investing. For example, socially responsible investors typically avoid companies in the alcohol, tobacco, or firearms industries. Now, some socially responsible mutual funds are looking at tax avoidance. Tax avoidance, which has been a hot topic in the news recently, means that companies are moving profits from a high tax country to a low tax country. However, tax avoidance does not imply that the company is breaking the law. The FTSE, which creates popular stock indices around the world, is considering eliminating companies with aggressive tax strategies from its socially responsible index, FTSE4Good. Maybe the new tax strategy should be to move income to the country with the highest tax rate?