It should be simple really.

Just produce the evidence.

The big business lobby group, the Business Council of Australia, is relentless in prosecuting its case that a company tax rate of 30 per cent is uncompetitive.

Unless that 'uncompetitive' tax rate is cut, according to the BCA, Australia won't be able to attract the investment needed to grow the economy, increase productivity and boost jobs.

Foreign investors will look at Australia, be put off by the 'high' taxes here, and take their money elsewhere.

The BCA has an enthusiastic supporter in Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison, who used the news the US, UK and France are considering lowering their company tax rates to push his own low-tax barrow.

"We risk Australian businesses and Australian wages because we can become stranded on an uncompetitive tax island if we fail to respond and act accordingly," Mr Morrison said.

But do we? Where are the examples of companies taking their investment to other countries because tax rates are too high in Australia?

If the Business Council of Australia's assertions are correct, you would expect it to be able to point to evidence to support them.

It can't.

The BCA case

When the ABC asked Business Council director and chief executive of business software maker MYOB, Tim Reed, to provide examples of foreign investment that has been diverted from Australia because of high taxes, he couldn't.

All Mr Reed could do was point to big businesses wanting tax to be lower. Who doesn't?

"You saw General Electric down here recently, you saw JP Morgan down here recently. In the press, all of them saying how important it is that Australia has a competitive company tax rate for US corporations like them to invest here," Mr Reed said.

Which is not quite what JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon said in an interview with the Financial Review newspaper during his visit to Australia last month.

"People will still invest money here [in Australia]. They still like the Australian system," Mr Dimon told the AFR.

"Australia is a rich country but it should be on alert that it may have to do something with its corporate tax rate over time."

So, for the head of one of the world's biggest banks which finances a lot of investment in Australia, this is a good place to invest and tax, while on the radar, is not central to its concerns.

Amazon is on its way, tax cut or not

The impending arrival of retailing behemoth Amazon tends to support Mr Dimon's view rather than that of the BCA.

In the retail sector the biggest fear appears to be being crushed by Amazon rather than tax.

Outgoing Wesfarmers boss Richard Goyder has said he spent more time worrying about Amazon than he ever did about Coles' great supermarket rival, Woolworths.

"Amazon will eat all our breakfasts, lunches and dinners," Mr Goyder once famously remarked.

If the BCA was right, Amazon would not be planning to invest billions of dollars in Australia because the company tax rate is too high.

And that's not to mention the flood of bricks-and-mortar retailers who are heading to Australia, with English department store Debenhams the latest to open here.

The resources sector is largely built on foreign capital. Hundreds of billions of dollars of it. Again, unperturbed by Australia's 'high' company tax rate.

Virgin Australia is a foreign-owned airline. Qantas's share register is nearly half overseas owned. And you could go on and on in other industries.

Personal tax cuts may be more effective

The head of strategy at investment house Perpetual, Matt Sherwood, also thinks the Business Council is barking up the wrong tree on company tax.

Mr Sherwood says the BCA approach betrays a lack of understanding of what drives investment.

"Businesses will only invest when they can see a structural rise in demand for their products that exceeds the capacity of their existing production capability," he explained.

In other words, unless businesses are confident they will be able to sell their products they are not going to build factories or whatever, no matter how high or low the company tax rate is.

In Australia, with low wages growth, high utility prices and record high household debt it's no surprise consumer demand is subdued, as retail sales are indicating.

Mr Sherwood believes if business wants to drive the conditions leading to greater investment in Australia, it should be arguing for cuts to personal income tax, not cuts to company tax.

"If individuals pay less tax they will spend more and this will drive the structural rise in demand that will create the conditions for business to invest," he said.

Mr Sherwood says a cut to company tax, in the current economic environment, will only result in higher dividends to shareholders, with nothing for workers in the shape of jobs or higher wages, and no increase in investment.