Isn't that more or less how it works? You pay tax where you live, with the justification being, as you say, that you are benefitting from the social structure there?

The big country that is an exception is the US. Their citizens have to pay tax regardless of them being elsewhere, and the difference is dealt with via various taxation treaties. I imagine the justification is something like "we help our citizens everywhere, so they owe us tax".

> I'd be interested to hear how others see it. Like I said, I haven't really thought about this too much before, and may be missing something more fundamental and obvious.

The big thing that's missing is corporations. They are imaginary entities, with a bunch of rules about what they are allowed to do, how they pay tax, etc. Once you create a corporation (or several), you can move profits around according to various accounting rules, which are often disconnected from how ordinary people interact with an entity. Are you buying coffee from Starbucks on Oxford Street, or Starbucks UK, or Starbucks Luxembourg? Most people don't think about that when they buy a coffee, but the accountants do.

You can also change what kind of tax you are paying. If you have a company, you can pay yourself a salary or a dividend. It's still money either way, but depending on jurisdiction taxed differently.