Andrew Leigh

MEDIA RELEASE

BUDGET SHOWS HOCKEY’S MULTINATIONAL TAX ‘POLICY’ RAISES $30 MILLION OVER FOUR YEARS

Joe Hockey’s best effort at tackling multinational tax avoidance is worth a total of $30 million over four years – less than 1/60^th of Labor’s multinationals package.

After spending months promising to reap “billions” from tax integrity measures, Joe Hockey’s own budget papers reveal him as a fraud.

There are no billions, only asterisks. 

This is pathetic inaction on ensuring multinational companies pay their fair share of tax. Multinational CEOs must be shaking in their boots today.

Measure	Revenue raised over Forward Estimates
Modernising the Offshore Banking Unit regime	$41.8 million
Combatting multinational tax avoidance – new transfer pricing documentation standards	-$11.3 million
Combatting multinational tax avoidance – a targeted anti-avoidance law	None specified
Combatting multinational tax avoidance – stronger penalties	None specified
Total	$30.5 million

Source: Budget Paper No.2 Budget Measures

Worse, Joe Hockey has shown his utter hypocrisy by putting changes to Part IV A of the tax act at the centre of his hollow package.

When Labor tightened Part IV A in 2013, Joe Hockey thundered that our reforms were:

“An unnecessary overreaction. More red tape for business—when is it ever going to stop? More compliance costs for business—when is it ever going to stop?”

Hansard, 14 March 2013

The Abbott Liberals actually tried to stop Labor closing loopholes in Part IV A by voting against our bill in the last Parliament. 

Now, Joe Hockey has done a dramatic about-face and decided to put this at the centre of his budget. What’s changed? 

What has changed is that Labor has announced a fully costed, carefully calibrated package of measures that will keep $7.2 billion worth of tax in Australia over the next decade. Our package includes:

• Changes to the arrangements for how multinational companies claim tax deductions
• Greater compliance work by the ATO to track down and tackle corporate tax avoidance
• Cracking down on multinational companies using hybrid structures to reduce tax
• Improved transparency and data matching.

The Abbott Government doesn’t care about making multinationals pay their fair share. Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey only care about putting up a smokescreen of action to try and save their own jobs.

Budget 2015 confirms that only Labor has a real plan to tackle multinational tax avoidance and ensure big multinationals pay their fair share.

WEDNESDAY, 13 MAY 2015

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