Labor frontbencher Sam Dastyari is going after banks and utility companies charging for paper bills they used to send out for free. Credit:Daniel Munoz Fairfax Media understands it will make 18 recommendations, including the new transparency requirements and four specific measures requested by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. One of these would allow ASIC to pass intelligence on suspect tax matters to the ATO without the current legal requirement to inform the company in its sights. The corporate tax avoidance inquiry was established in October in response to a Fairfax Media report that revealed a third of Australia's largest companies pay less than 10¢ in the dollar in tax compared to the 30 per cent corporate tax rate. The tax foregone in the decade to 2013 was $80 billion. But it was the appearance of Google, Microsoft and Apple in front of the committee that drove home how "simple" tax minimisation was for multinationals operating in Australia, according to senators. Apple, for example, paid just $80 million in tax in Australian on sales of $6 billion.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon sought the review and a federal police investigation after Jack Warner's arrest by US authorities. Credit:Quinn Rooney On Saturday, Senator Dastyari said: "There is a major flaw in our tax system that is enabling some of the biggest companies in the world to evade billions in tax that should be paid in Australia. It's time we name and shame our worst tax dodgers." Senator Nick Xenophon believes the committee's report, which was being considered by the government over the weekend, will provide a "template" to fight back. "After this report is handed down, no government will again be able to turn a blind eye to the bleeding obvious that the way we have tackled aggressive tax minimisation in the past has been woefully inadequate. Successive Australian governments have been hoodwinked by some companies," he said. Government sources said there was significant bipartisanship on transparency but a dissenting report to the committee's report will argue against some recommendations that could lead to "duplication" of measures already proposed to combat tax avoidance. The government will push back at the committee's failure to acknowledge its work towards a global crackdown on "base erosion and profit shifting".

The government was due to submit dissenting comments by Friday but was considering its position on Saturday. There is some nervousness in Coalition ranks about a tax evasion investigation to be aired by Channel Seven's high-rating Sunday Night program. Treasurer Joe Hockey flagged and then retreated from imposing a diverted profits tax like Britain's "Google tax" but promised action in this year's budget. A bill for Mr Hockey's multinational anti-avoidance law, aimed at 30 companies, will be introduced soon. Christine Milne, the former Greens leader who has left Parliament but was sent a copy of the committee's report, said she "felt sick" when business groups and members of the government talk up the need for GST reform but ignore the billions of dollars being lost to the corporate sector in foregone tax.