Actually Buenos Aires is trying to get Netflix to pay a 3% tax.
Argentinian netflix does have local movies. I watched Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens) there (if you're a netflix subscriber, would you please check for me if that's available in your region? If so, I'd also suggest you watch it).
The problem, as you say, if you buy a car and have it shipped, you pay tax. But services aren't taxed (I'm not saying they should or shouldn't, i'm just stating a fact). And, as you say, if they don't have offices, they shouldn't pay anything. And this is where it gets interesting: why should any american company have offices outside the US? Everything they do is online or over the phone. You don't go to a netflix office.
As for the quota of local content: yes, I don't want to see crap shows on TV to meet a quota, but, as you say, the production value is different. The US has a huge advantage: they have their own market, which is gigantic. And they own the distribution too. They don't make their shows to "export", they do because it doesn't cost them more money.
But other countries don't have that advantage, and they have to play in a completely unfair game. How do you expect your country's productions to get better if they just simply can't because they have to compete with TV shows?
A TV show in the US has a budget of millions of dollar per episode. High profile shows even have millions of dollars in salaries, per actor, per episode. You can't really expect a TV show made in Suriname to have a $2M budget per episode. Not even for a whole season. No other country shoots their TV shows on FILM like the US does (or used to do - probably now it's all 4K video). All other countries shoot on SD video - that should give you an idea of how much the americans can spend for production - and also: now they can re-release all their old shows in HD (because their source material is able to give you that resolution). Try that with European shows - oopsie: they were shot on video. Good luck competing with that.