Comment by toast0
Ordinary people can't do this because they missed the window, but also because their labor has a clear nexus. This scheme worked because when a product is designed in one locale, built in another, and sold in a third, there's some reasonable question of what the nexus of the income is.
Ordinary people that have written books or songs or otherwise earn royalties from creative works on a regular basis could probably have arranged for ownership of their royalties to be owned by a complex corporate structure as well, but I don't know that very many ordinary people earn enough in royalties that tax avoidance is worth the setup and maintenance costs.
I mean, the clear way to deal with this is to make them choose, and allow import tariffs. Get taxed where the nexus is, and pay to bring the value to other jurisdictions.
I understand that the web of various tax laws and trade agreements makes this impossible though. 80 years of cruft is too much to sift through to improve things in one fell swoop I suppose.