Andrew Leigh

MEDIA RELEASE

ABBOTT GOVERNMENT HURTING FAMILIES BUT LETTING MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES OFF THE HOOK

Tony Abbott’s refusal to accept Labor’s plan to make multinational companies pay their fair share of tax shows his Government’s priorities are all wrong.

Labor has developed a sensible package of multinational tax measures that will return $7.2 billion to Australia over the next 10 years.

The Abbott Government has been dragged kicking and screaming by Labor into acknowledging that multinational tax avoidance is a problem for Australia.

Now, it is preparing to hand down a budget filled with smoke-and-mirrors tax measures in an effort to save Tony Abbott’s job.

For months the Government has been ducking and dissembling on action to ensure big multinationals pay their fair share.

After reopening tax loopholes worth $1.1 billion upon coming to office, Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey then tried to palm off all responsibility for developing tighter tax policies to the G20. 

It was only when Labor announced that we had done the hard work of coming up with a sensible and costed multinational tax package in March this year that the Government miraculously discovered the need for domestic action.

This led to the embarrassing spectacle of Joe Hockey floating tax thought-bubbles that disintegrated upon first contact with facts, like his so-called ‘Google tax’.    

In an effort to hide his inaction, the Treasurer has also had the gall to claim credit for the tax integrity and audit programs put in place by Labor when we were in office.

These Labor initiatives have added over $730 million to the budget bottom line since 2012.  To date, the Government’s own actions on multinational tax have not seen a single major company contribute more to Australia’s common wealth.

That’s because this Government fundamentally does not believe that big business should be held to the same standard as small businesses and individual Australian taxpayers.

Labor’s package of multinational tax measures that will return $7.2 billion to Australia over the next 10 years. This 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.

Joe Hockey will no doubt spruik his upcoming Budget as including tough new measures to tackle tax avoidance.

But unless these come with hard revenue estimates and clear implementation details, they will just be more hot air from a Treasurer who is full of it.  

Tony Abbott promised to make things better – but he has made things so much worse.

This Government has provided ample proof that it does not care about making big multinationals pay their fair share.

Throwing a few token tax measures into the upcoming Budget in an effort to save Tony Abbott’s job certainly won’t change that.

This Budget is all about saving Tony Abbott’s job - not about Australia’s future.

WEDNESDAY, 6 MAY 2015

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