Chris Jordan says he believes crackdown on corporate tax avoidance is starting to generate ‘substantial results’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Australia’s most senior tax official says profits on more than $7bn worth of sales made in Australia will now be taxed for the first time, thanks to recent anti-tax avoidance laws.

Chris Jordan, the ATO commissioner, said Australia’s tax system would account for the future growth of those sales, so the taxes on those profits could grow each year, too.

Speaking at a Senate inquiry on Tuesday, Jordan told senators he believed Australia’s recent crackdown on corporate tax avoidance was starting to generate “substantial results” after he warned last year he had had enough.

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He said since the ATO had started focusing on multinational tax avoidance in recent years, it had completed more than 1,000 reviews and audits of companies, and some entities had publicly disclosed their assessments or adjustments as a result of ATO pressure, “including BHP, Crown, Singtel, and Rio Tinto”.

“This work has raised over $4bn in total assessments against large public groups and multinationals in the last financial year alone,” Jordan said.

“We have achieved results. In doing so we have not only cleaned up the past, and any back tax owed, but critically we have locked in future arrangements to safeguard against the insipid roundabout of repeated chase and tidy-up scenarios with taxpayers.

“The work of the tax avoidance taskforce is now focused on ensuring all remaining companies abide by the taxpayer alerts and the public guidance we have issued.”

He said that, as a consequence of the multinational anti-avoidance legislation, profits on more than $7bn worth of sales made in Australia would be taxed for the first time.

“That’s $7bn in sales that will now be booked in Australia and the appropriate profit from those activities in Australia will be taxed in Australia for the first time,” he said. “Importantly, this includes locking in the arrangements to account for the future growth ... in those sales [too].”

Jordan was joined by executives from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and IBM at the inquiry.

Apple executives insisted its tax arrangements in Australia had now been given the tick of approval by the ATO, following a long-running audit.

The company’s managing director in Australia, Tony King, said the ATO’s five-year audit of the company had concluded with no penalty imposed, Apples taxes were now up to date and the company was committed to keeping authorities abreast of any changes in future.

“There are no issues of dispute between Apple and the ATO,” King said.

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He said Apple had a straightforward business model in Australia, and insisted the company recorded all its transactions and revenue locally.

He said Apple paid an effective tax rate of 26% globally and was among the top 50 corporate taxpayers in Australia.

“We are a compliant taxpayer everywhere that we operate in the world,” he said.

He said over the five years the audit was conducted, Apple paid $630m of tax in Australia, including $120m in 2016.

Mark Konza, the ATO deputy commissioner, agreed that Apple had resolved its issues with the ATO, saying it was “welcome news”.

Damon Richardson, Google’s director of international tax, gave evidence that Google continued to use a complicated global tax structure that included companies registered in Singapore, Ireland and Bermuda – well-known low-tax jurisdictions or tax havens.

When asked why Google needed to register businesses in Singapore and Ireland, he said they necessary to be globally competitive.

“There are a number of factors that go into where we decide to put in our regional headquarters and one of those factors certainly would be tax,” he said.

“In relation to Ireland, Ireland is an entity or a jurisdiction where because of how our businesses operates we need people to speak a multitude of languages. I believe there’s in excess of 20 different languages that are spoken in our Google Ireland Ltd entity.

“There’s 6,000 people who sit in Ireland in our operations there who primarily are working to serve our advertisers across the European region.”

Australian Associated Press contributed to this report