Senate Enquiry Into Corporate Tax

United Voice welcomes the establishment today (2 October) by the Australian Senate of an inquiry into corporate tax in Australia.

David O’Byrne, National Secretary of United Voice, who launched the ground-breaking report into corporate tax Who Pays for our Common Wealth? on Monday (29 September), said it was an important first step in ensuring all Australian corporations are paying their fair share of tax.

“Following the release of the report the community was shocked to learn that many of Australia’s largest corporations are legally eliminating the need to pay tax at all or reducing their tax bills to 10% or less.

“It has been particularly pleasing that members of the business community, like Richard Goyder and Gerry Harvey, have also spoken out against tax avoidance by some large corporations.

“The Senate Inquiry will help the Australian people understand how Australia’s corporate tax system is broken and hopefully how we can begin to fix it,” Mr O’Byrne said.

ABOUT THE REPORT
Australian first research reveals 29% of Australia top 200 Companies are paying an effective corporate tax rate of 10% or less, while more than 14% have an effective tax rate of 0%.

The findings are part of ground breaking research into the levels of tax paid over the last ten years by the top 200 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). The research was conducted by United Voice in collaboration with the Tax Justice Network (TJN) and was released on Monday 29th September 2014. United Voice and TJN briefed Federal MPs and Senators on Wednesday (October 1) in Parliament House.

The report finds that for all ASX 200 Companies the average effective corporate tax rate over the last decade is 23%, well below the corporate tax rate of 30%. The impact of these practices it has been estimated totals to approximately $8.4 billion in annual revenues lost to the Commonwealth Government.

The report found that within the ASX 200 companies 57% disclose having subsidiaries in secrecy jurisdictions and 60% report debt levels in excess of 75%, which may artificially reduce taxable profits.