Why would any business pay more tax than it needs to?

The subject of tax payment cannot avoid being a political football, especially as an election approaches.
But if there is to be a genuine debate, and genuine clarity about what each political party actually stands for on tax and businesses then there needs also to be clarity about what is and is not legal.
Tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance is not.
Given that all benefit from the “public goods” such as education and transport infrastructure, and these have to be paid for, no business or indeed no one I know would quarrel with paying a fair amount of tax.
But beyond that it could be argued that a company’s directors have a duty to minimise their business tax bill in order to maximise profits, in other words to avoid paying taxes they don’t have to. That is why people use accountants and other financial advisors.
It is fair enough for politicians to want to close loopholes that allow large corporations to “game” the system and avoid paying their fair share.
However do we really want a tax regime that rests on politicians telling us how much income we are permitted to have, as the Labour Party seems to want to when attacking tax avoidance? Surely that is perilously close to communism?
The press isn’t immune as turnover is often cited instead of profits when referring to tax.
What we would all like to see is a taxation system that prevents tax avoidance by corporations using offshore accounts to keep more than their fair share of profits while still benefiting from the public goods that allow them to operate profitably in the UK.