Andrew Leigh

STUART ROBERT GETS IT WRONG

Back at the desk after a year being investigated by ASIC, justifying his business dealings, and being forced to repay a $38,000 internet bill, Stuart Robert has blundered again.

In a media release today, Mr Robert states that Labor voted against the Coalition’s Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law.

In fact, Labor supported that bill through both the House and the Senate.

Perhaps Mr Robert is confusing Labor’s position with that of the Coalition, who when in opposition voted against Labor’s 2013 crackdown on multinational tax avoidance. At the time, the Coalition claimed that Labor’s multinational tax avoidance measure was retrospective (it wasn’t). That Labor law has since yielded hundreds of millions of dollars for the budget bottom line.

Rather than cooking up pork pies, Mr Robert should adopt Labor’s 15-point plan to crack down on multinational tax avoidance.

1. Tighten debt-deduction loopholes used by multinational companies, improving the Budget by $3 billion over the medium term.
2. Close a debt deduction loophole to ensure consistent treatment in related party financing arrangements.
3. Automatically deny deductions from companies for travel to and from tax havens.
4. Increase penalties for individuals and entities promoting tax evasion and avoidance.
5. Crack down on citizenship shopping by requiring all individual Australian taxpayers to notify and declare to the Australian Taxation Office if they have residency or citizenship of any other jurisdiction and the name of that jurisdiction.
6. Introduce public reporting of country-by-country reports, ensuring the release of high-level tax information about where and how much tax was paid by large corporations (over $1 billion in global revenue).
7. Provide protection for whistleblowers who report on entities evading tax to the Australian Taxation Office and, where whistleblowers’ information results in more tax being paid, allow them to collect a share of the tax penalty (a reward of up to $250,000).
8. Introduce a publicly accessible registry of the beneficial ownership of Australian listed companies and trusts, allowing the public to find out who really owns our firms. 
9. Introduce mandatory shareholder reporting of tax haven exposure, requiring companies to disclose to shareholders as a ‘Material Tax Risk’ if the company is doing business in a tax haven.
10. Appoint a community sector representative to the Board of Taxation to ensure community sector voices are heard in tax design and review processes.
11. Introduce public reporting of Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) data and require the annual public release of international cash flow data.
12. Require all firms tendering for Australian Government contracts worth more than $200,000 to state their country of domicile for tax purposes.
13. Develop guidelines for tax haven investment by superannuation funds. 
14. Require that the Australian Taxation Office’s annual report provide information on the number and size of tax settlements.
15. Restore Labor’s $100 million threshold for public reporting of tax data for private companies, which was raised to $200 million by the Liberals and Greens in a move which exempted two-thirds of private firms from tax transparency.

Authorised by Noah Carrol, ALP, Canberra.