Tax havens

[David]

I'm happy that Hockey's put this on the agenda. Let's hope now that he has the guts to fight this battle:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/07/joe-hockey-warns-tax-avoiders-they-will-be-pursued

[Tannin]

Bahhh ... David, learn to read more carefully for the love of Mike. Hockey has no plans whatsoever to deal with large-scale tax evasion by the likes of Google, Ikea, and Apple. Hockey is big-noting himself about plans to deal with illegal tax evasion, and the multi-billions dollar ripoffs by these huge multinational freeloaders are 100% legal. That's the whole point: they use loopholes in international tax laws to avoid paying any tax at all (bar some nominal and piddly amount they usually remit just so that no-one can say they don't pay any tax - typically, this amount is around 1% of what they actually should pay.)

Illegal tax evasion is a trivially small drop in the vast ocean of "legal" tax evasion which costs this country billions of dollars every year - enough to wipe out the deficit Hockey so loves to bang on about, and plenty left over. Hockey has done nothing at all to close the legal tax evasion loopholes, and has announced nothing at all by way of plans to do so. Hockey hopes that people are stupid enough not to notice the difference.

[pietillidie]

Where some see a Steely-eyed Adult in the Room ready to fight for the betterment of the nation, I simply see a posturing baboon that would throw poop if it could...

[watt price tully]

[HAL]

What about the other ones?

[stui magpie]

If you want to see what Hockey et al are doing with the tax system, try here.

http://jbh.ministers.treasury.gov.au/media-release/017-2013/

[pietillidie]

[ronrat]

I agree with Tannin. No attempt will be made to do a thing about it. Unless he has had a chance to warn them of another way to go about it before he implements it. And in 6 years time he will resign from Parliament on a gravy train and use taxpayers money to flit between the board meetings of those companies who are bleeding us dry. But still the sheep need a new I phone.

[watt price tully]

What makes this even more hypocritical by Hockey is that his f*cking government has cut the public service & got rid of those with experience & knowledge in the ATO who could have been working on corporate tax cheating & business fraud.

[stui magpie]

^

The best thing any government could do is throw out the tax legislation and start again from scratch.

Start with an eye on what the intent of some things like the FBT act were, and the various deductions, exemptions and other loopholes are and then reimagine how it should look if it was redesigned from scratch to be simple.

[Tannin]

[David]

Sounds like good news to me.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/09/joe-hockey-profit-shifting-tax-audit-multinationals-australia

[pietillidie]

Hockey backflips on tax laws to target multinational profit shifters

Treasurer Joe Hockey has broken a pledge to impose tough new tax avoidance rules on multinational companies that shift billions of dollars in profits between Australia and their international subsidiaries.

The practice of global corporations loading up subsidiaries with debt and then claiming relief from the Australian tax man on the interest paid gives an "unfair competitive advantage" over local rivals, Treasury said in 2013.

"When some taxpayers avoid or minimise their tax in a sustained way, the tax burden eventually falls more heavily on other taxpayers," a Treasury issues paper found at the time.

The Gillard government announced the abolition of deductions under section 25-90 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 as part of a package to combat tax minimisation by global corporations, at a projected benefit to the taxpayer of $600 million.

In November last year, Mr Hockey and the then Assistant Treasurer, Arthur Sinodinos, announced they would not legislate Labor's package, saying it would impose "unreasonable compliance costs on Australian companies" with subsidiaries offshore.

The current loophole favours the largest Australian companies such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, currently under pressure from diving commodity prices.

Instead, Mr Hockey � who has trumpeted a global tax crackdown on multinationals through the G20 process � and Mr Sinodinos pledged in November to "introduce a targeted anti‑avoidance provision after detailed consultation with stakeholders".

But in Monday's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, a single line on page 117 revealed: "The government will not proceed with a targeted anti-avoidance provision to address certain conduit arrangements involving foreign multinational enterprises, first announced in the 2013-14 MYEFO."

While companies like IKEA and Apple have been in the news for "offshoring" billions of dollars made in Australia, tax experts told Fairfax Media it was Australia-based global players that will benefit the most from the government's backdown.

Companies with significant operations overseas get a "double bonus" under the existing law, introduced by the Howard government in 2001, because dividends from their international subsidiaries are tax exempt yet the interest on borrowings used to grow overseas operations is tax deductible.

...

On Tuesday, shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh accused Mr Hockey of "sneaking in another giveaway for multinational companies" despite presiding over a near doubling of the deficit in 2014/15.

"Yet again the Treasurer has shown that he is happy to let big companies off the hook while hacking into foreign aid, schools, hospitals and pensions," Mr Leigh said.

...
John Passant, an outspoken tax expert from the Australian National University, recently wrote about the government's decision not to abolish section 25-90 deductions.

"It is unfortunate in the extreme that the Treasurer and Treasury have listened to a group of rent seekers being unjustly rewarded by not repealing section 25-90. But since this is a government of the 1% that is not surprising and we can conclude in fact that Hockey's bluster about addressing tax avoidance by his rich mates is just that � complete and utter bluster," he wrote.

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/hockey-backflips-on-tax-laws-to-target-multinational-profit-shifters-20141216-128ebg.html

[HAL]

Do you mean your name is John?

[watt price tully]

Great pick up PTID.

While the collective Australian consciousness was with the victims of the act of terror in Sydney these scumbags bury their act of treachery to the Australian taxpayer in the midst of the mid year review.

What was that about the age of entitlement?

The libs are scum as shown (again) by another act of bastardry at the cost of the taxpayer.


Hockey backflips on tax laws to target multinational profit shifters

Treasurer Joe Hockey has broken a pledge to impose tough new tax avoidance rules on multinational companies that shift billions of dollars in profits between Australia and their international subsidiaries.

But in Monday's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, a single line on page 117 revealed: "The government will not proceed with a targeted anti-avoidance provision to address certain conduit arrangements involving foreign multinational enterprises, first announced in the 2013-14 MYEFO."
......

Companies with significant operations overseas get a "double bonus" under the existing law, introduced by the Howard government in 2001, because dividends from their international subsidiaries are tax exempt yet the interest on borrowings used to grow overseas operations is tax deductible.