Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance set to recommend naming and shaming companies that avoid tax while hiding behind privacy provisions

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Apple and Google could be forced to declare how much tax they have paid in Australia annually under recommendations from a Senate committee.

The inquiry into corporate tax avoidance is due to report on Monday and will make 18 recommendations, Fairfax Media reports.

Among the recommendations is that all companies should annually disclose how much money they made in Australia, how much tax they paid, tax deductions and other government write-offs.

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Naming companies that dodge tax is also among the recommendations.

Apple, Google and Microsoft were among the companies that fronted the inquiry and had their evidence contested by the tax commissioner.

Labor senator Sam Dastyari, who chaired the inquiry, foreshadowed the report on Sunday, saying the key issue was one of transparency.

He said every dollar avoided “is a dollar that’s not going to a hospital, a school or an institution of welfare that’s needed in this country”.

“Right now, the laws as they currently stand mean that Australia’s worst tax offenders are able to hide behind privacy provisions,” Dastyari said.

“It’s time we named them, and we shamed them and it’s time that we actually gave the Australian public an opportunity to know who these companies are, to know the practices they’re engaging in, to not allow them to hide behind what currently exists as privacy provisions.”

Dastyari did not say whether any of the measures would result in more tax being collected, but insisted the “more public disclosure, the more pressure that’s brought upon these companies, the better the policy outcome”.

He also called on the Coalition government to do more to counter corporate tax avoidance.

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“The government has been great on talk and terrible on action,” Dastyari said. “The rhetoric from the Treasurer [Joe Hockey] on this issue has been fantastic to date. His action has been minimal.”

The government has been considering the report over the weekend and is expected to table a response.

In May the government announced Australia would become the third country in the world to enter into new transfer pricing documentation standards to crack down on multinational tax avoidance.

A measure included in the May budget allows the Australian Taxation Office to receive information on companies with global revenue of $1bn or more which operate in Australia.