INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ENTERPRISES – TAXATION – AUSTRALIA

ATO hails tech giants’ $7b sales surge

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Original article by Joanna Mather
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 4 : 23-Aug-17

Executives from technology companies such as Apple and Google appeared before an inquiry into corporate tax avoidance on 22 August. Apple Australia MD Tony King told the Senate committee that the company has not been penalised following the completion of a five-year audit by the Australian Taxation Office, while IBM, Facebook and Google advised that they are still being audited. Meanwhile, Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan hailed the success of the ATO’s crackdown on tax avoidance by multinationals, noting that it issued $A4bn worth of tax assessments in 2016-17.

CORPORATES
APPLE PTY LTD, AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE, IBM AUSTRALIA LIMITED, FACEBOOK INCORPORATED, GOOGLE INCORPORATED, MICROSOFT AUSTRALIA

$200b ‘Google tax’ could snare innocent businesses

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Original article by Joanna Mather
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 1 & 4 : 18-Jan-17

Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand has warned that the Federal Government’s Diverted Profits Tax will deter investment in Australia, while discouraging local multinational companies from pursuing overseas expansion. Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills has expressed concern about the scope of the draft legislation compared with the British version of the tax. The tax, which aims to combat profit-shifting by multinationals, is forecast to raise about $A200m over four years and is slated to take effect from mid-2017.

CORPORATES
CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND, GREENWOODS AND HERBERT SMITH FREEHILLS PTY LTD, CORPORATE TAX ASSOCIATION, AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY, ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Targeted tax strike on digital economy

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Original article by David Crowe, David Uren
The Australian – Page: 1 & 2 : 11-Jan-17

The Australian Government plans to overhaul the tax system in response to the transition from a cash-based economy to digital payments. Treasurer Scott Morrison has stressed the need to ensure that the nation’s tax base is modern as well as comprehensive and reflects the shift to a digital economy. The Government also intends to crack down on the so-called "black economy", while 2017 will also see the broadening of the GST to include online purchases and new measures to counter profit-shifting by multinationals.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY, GOOGLE INCORPORATED, NETFLIX INCORPORATED, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, RESERVE BANK OF AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA. PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF HUMAN SERVICES. CENTRELINK, CSIRO

Tax crackdown will be far reaching

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Original article by Joanna Mather
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 17 : 5-May-16

The Corporate Tax Association’s Michelle de Niese says the diverted profits tax outlined in the Australian Government’s May 2016 Budget may prove to be broader in scope than a similar tax in the UK. Companies found to have engaged in profit-shifting will face a tax rate of 40 per cent on such profits, compared with the corporate tax rate of 30 per cent. Mark Konza of the Australian Taxation Office adds that the new tax may affect more taxpayers than the multinational anti-avoidance law, which was introduced in 2015.

CORPORATES
CORPORATE TAX ASSOCIATION, AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, RSM PTY LTD, ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT, NETFLIX INCORPORATED

Tax crackdown to hit profit shifting

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Original article by Joanna Mather
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 1 & 2 : 19-Apr-16

The Australian Government is expected to make changes to thin capitalisation rules in order to curb multinational tax avoidance. The changes, to be announced in the May 2016 Budget, would reduce the amount of debt which multinational companies are allowed to take through their Australian operation from 60 per cent to 50 per cent. The reduction in the "safe harbour" debt-to-assets ratio could lead to accusations of discouraging foreign investment in Australia.

CORPORATES
PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS AUSTRALIA (INTERNATIONAL) PTY LTD, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, AUSTRALIAN GREENS, INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT WORKERS’ FEDERATION, KPMG AUSTRALIA PTY LTD

Australians worry about cross-border tax dodges

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Original article by Joanna Mather
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 4 : 1-Apr-16

A survey commissioned by Australian accounting firm BDO suggests that tax avoidance by international companies is considered to be a serious problem. BDO’s tax chief, Mark Molesworth, says 20 per cent of survey respondents regarded profit shifting by multinationals as the country’s biggest tax problem, followed by the GST and state taxes.

CORPORATES
BDO CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS AND ADVISERS, APPLE INCORPORATED, CHEVRON CORPORATION, GLAXOSMITHKLINE PLC

Don’t play me for a fool, tax chief tells tech giants

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Original article by Adam Creighton
The Australian – Page: 2 : 11-Feb-16

Australia’s Commissioner of Taxation, Chris Jordan, has told a Senate committee that he is prepared to pursue legal action against multinational companies that continue to evade their tax liabilities. He said six companies have now been identified by the Australian Taxation Office as being at the highest risk of non-compliance with their tax obligations, while it is reviewing the tax affairs of 290 large companies.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, GOOGLE INCORPORATED, APPLE INCORPORATED, MICROSOFT CORPORATION, CHEVRON CORPORATION, ORICA LIMITED – ASX ORI

Good, bad, ugly: ATO reveals all

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Original article by Neil Chenoweth, Primrose Riordan, Edmund Tadros, Joanna Mather
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 7 : 18-Dec-15

Some 579 of the 1,539 public companies whose tax details were released on 17 December 2015 did not pay any tax in Australia in fiscal 2014. The Australian Taxation Office figures cover 554 companies based in Australia and 985 foreign-owned companies, and show that Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Acer and Citrix Systems are among the companies that paid no tax. BHP Billiton had the highest corporate tax bill, at $A4.1bn.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE, BHP BILLITON LIMITED – ASX BHP, HEWLETT-PACKARD AUSTRALIA LIMITED, TOSHIBA (AUSTRALIA) PTY LTD, ACER INCORPORATED, CITRIX SYSTEMS INCORPORATED, RIO TINTO LIMITED – ASX RIO, APPLE INCORPORATED, MICROSOFT CORPORATION, GOOGLE INCORPORATED, CAPGEMINI AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, NOKIA AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, ALCATEL-LUCENT AUSTRALIA LIMITED, SANTOS LIMITED – ASX STO, CSL LIMITED – ASX CSL, MITSUI AND COMPANY LIMITED, ITOCHU CORPORATION, NIPPON STEEL CORPORATION, SUMITOMO CORPORATION, ESSO AUSTRALIA RESOURCES LIMITED, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY

Hockey’s last big tax crackdown

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Original article by Joanna Mather, Fleur Anderson
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 1 & 10 : 17-Sep-15

Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey says tax law reforms aimed at combating profit-shifting by multinationals could potentially affect up to 1,000 companies, rather than the 30 that he had initially flagged. Hockey says the revised legislation, which was introduced to Parliament on 16 September 2015, will apply to all multinationals with global revenue of at least $A1bn. Lawyers, accountants and employers’ associations are among those to have expressed concern that the new anti-avoidance laws will deter foreign investment in Australia.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY, BAKER AND McKENZIE, KPMG AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN AUSTRALIA, ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Hockey to tax global giants

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Original article by Phillip Coorey
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 1 & 4 : 12-May-15

The Australian Government’s May 2015 Budget will feature spending initiatives that will cost up to $A10bn. It includes $A3.5bn for childcare and an additional $A450m for national security. Meanwhile, the Government has announced that downloading digital content from offshore providers will attract the GST, while it will crack down on international corporations that avoid their tax liabilities by shifting profits overseas. However, it has ruled out a so-called "Google Tax".

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY, GOOGLE INCORPORATED, NETFLIX INCORPORATED, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT, AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE, THE TAX INSTITUTE, ARNOLD BLOCH LEIBLER, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET