Category: TAX

TAX

The millionaires who are begging to pay more tax

Brian Cox wants millionaires and billionaires to pay more tax.

Being a millionaire is just another small powerless voice in the land of the financial elite and powerful.  Of Course they’d support a qualified change of a 2% tax for those over $10M in investments to help the trickle-down that never occurred these past 50-plus years.  Only too happy to salvage a dying system rather than change it. It’s a bit of a cry by millionaires to ” Hey look over there” Billionaires and Trillionaires they need to give a lot more”. Millionaires already saw their taxes generously reduced and profits up by far more than 2% aren’t giving back anything they made in real terms.

It’s the structure of global corporations that needs to be changed from private to public and a real Future Fund established and they need to be taxed and the profits invested for our and a global common good. Can you imagine the Military Industrial Complex battling the war on poverty health and housing? Their shareholders need to feel the benefits of profit sharing and not feel it as a punishment tax simply because of their current lack of interest in contributing to a common good. Israel and its supporters currently need to be heavily punished and taxed. The Bhutanese on the other hand don’t as they already base their economy on ” Gross National Happiness”

A recent survey has found that nearly half of all millionaires from G20 countries think extreme wealth is a threat to democracy.

The survey was conducted by Survation on behalf of Patriotic Millionaires and found that three-quarters of those questioned supported higher taxes on wealth.

For the survey more than 2300 people from G20 countries with more than $1 million investable assets, excluding their homes, were polled.

The survey found 74 per cent were in support of higher taxes on wealth to aid the cost-of-living crisis and improve public services.

Some 75 per cent also support a two per cent wealth tax on billionaires being introduced, and 58 per cent support the tax for people with more than $10 million.

Additionally, 72 per cent believe extreme wealth can buy political influence and 54 per cent maintain that extreme wealth is a threat to democracy.

Source: The millionaires who are begging to pay more tax

TAX

Tax Farming – Bleeding Australia Dry! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

It occurred to me the other night how many revenue-raising bodies now exist in Australia. There is a plethora of taxes and levies upon the people that sometimes defies imagination. The other interesting fact being that many of these entities have been sold to private interests, that paid handsome fees in advance for the right to collect such taxes and levies (thus giving governments a temporary yet handy cash flow – often used together with the words of retiring public debt).

Source: Tax Farming – Bleeding Australia Dry! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

TAX, Tax Evasion

Top 40 Tax Dodgers of 2023 – Michael West

Top 40 Tax Dodgers of 2023

Fossil fuel giants and other foreign multinationals are again the biggest tax dodgers in Australia. Callum Foote and Michael West unveil the un-prestigious Michael West Media Top 40 Tax Dodgers awards.

Source: Top 40 Tax Dodgers of 2023 – Michael West

TAX

Tax the Damn Churches, for Christ’s Sake: A Secular Sunday Sermon | The Smirking Chimp

Howard courted wealthy Christian sects and encouraged them to become part of the LNP. We wound up with 9 Pentacosalists in the LNP government.It’s now been revealed Senator Alex Antic has been making massive expense claims and feeding taxpayer money back into their businesses. Whitestone Strategic is a Christian organization aligned with Advance the “No” campaigners and the ACL Christian lobby bent on prosecuting the LNP’s nope nope nope campaigns. It’s a propaganda business. Religions today are businesses intent on influencing politics and not separating from it and therefore should be taxed. We are a secular Democracy, not a Christian one and that ought not be allowed to be corrupted as it has been in the USA

We’re always told that this is a Christian country, and to enforce that claim, the Christians have been really adept at using that tax exemption most skillfully to tear down the wall between church and state.

Source: Tax the Damn Churches, for Christ’s Sake: A Secular Sunday Sermon | The Smirking Chimp

TAX

Airbnb tax rort: why is the government subsidising holiday landlords? – Michael West

ATO Commissioner Chris Jordan

Since Covid people have opted to work from home turning a proportion of their homes into office space as we know Stuart Robert did when he claimed expenses for his Fax copier among other things. Are homeowners being charged CGT on that proportion of their homes claimed as an investment? Will Stuart Robert be made to pay Capital Gains on the sale of his house?

What about renters can they claim a proportion of their rent, gas, and electricity as tax-deductible expenses or should they invoice their place of work and declare it as added income?

Despite the housing crisis, despite the rentals crisis, holiday house landlords claim year-round tax breaks on short-term rentals often vacant. In a letter to Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan, Tim Evans asks why.

This in part has resulted from the common practice among owners of Airbnb and short-term/holiday rental properties claiming up to 100% of annual expenses on these properties simply because they have made the properties “available to rent”, even though they may only be rented out for a fraction of the year.

Source: Airbnb tax rort: why is the government subsidising holiday landlords? – Michael West

TAX

Which Nation Has Taxed the Rich the Most? – CounterPunch.org

Why we have billionaires and trillionaires and a shrinking middle class,

Overall, notes the economist Thomas Piketty, America’s wealthiest faced an average 81 percent top tax rate between the years 1932 and 1980, one key reason why our richest 0.1 percenters — over the course of the 20th century’s middle decades — sawtheir share of the nation’s wealth sink from 25 to just 7 percent.

The rich — on both sides of the Atlantic — would spend plenty of time stewing about that shocking sink throughout those middle decades. But these deep pockets would eventually regain their political mojo, first in the UK with Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 political ascent and then a year later with Ronald Reagan’s election. By 1988, the UK’s top rate had sunk by over half, and America’s richest faced just a 28 percent top-bracket bite.

 

Source: Which Nation Has Taxed the Rich the Most? – CounterPunch.org

TAX

Not too quick: Tax Office dithering on Lendlease scam puts whistleblowers at risk – Michael West

Lendlease, ATO, whistleblowers

How many corporate directors or managers are today sitting in our jails? How many even went through the justice process? It’s generally a rapid process for those now sitting in jail for mental health, addiction, and poverty reasons. Some like Indigenous Australians too quick. Getting out is hard and back in too easy.

If Lendlease tax whistleblower goes down in court while the Tax Office continues to dither for more than four years enforcing its ‘double dipping’ rules against the property giant, the question could well be asked, why would anybody do the right thing and blow the whistle again? Michael West reports.

Source: Not too quick: Tax Office dithering on Lendlease scam puts whistleblowers at risk – Michael West

TAX

Stage 3 tax cuts to benefit rural Australia the least, analysis shows – ABC News

Country Australians will benefit the least from the stage 3 tax cuts, a new analysis based on tax data shows.

Source: Stage 3 tax cuts to benefit rural Australia the least, analysis shows – ABC News

Corporate Tax Evasion, TAX, Tax avoider protection

Rex Patrick: put PwC top of blacklist for government procurement payments – Michael West

PwC

The first thing Abbott did when elected was rid the ATO of some 3000 fully trained corporate tax investigators the best were snapped up by the big 4

Big 4 consultancy PwC has been caught red-handed with partners leaking confidential information, obtained while advising the Federal government on combating tax avoidance, so their multinational clients could avoid tax. As the government ponders its response, Rex Patrick argues it’s time to introduce a procurement blacklist to deal with corporate cowboys.

Source: Rex Patrick: put PwC top of blacklist for government procurement payments – Michael West

TAX

Treasury warned against Stage Three tax cuts

Two of the government's most prominent figures would be in the firing line if a reversal eventuated.

I can’t remember who it was who first tweeted it, but it’s impossible to argue honestly with the idea that keeping a bad promise is worse than breaking a bad promise.

Source: Treasury warned against Stage Three tax cuts

TAX

Rio Tinto settles $1b tax bill: ATO – Michael West

Multinational mining giant Rio Tinto has settled a decade-long tax dispute with the Australian Taxation Office, handing over almost $1 billion in unpaid taxes after an investigation of its Singapore marketing hub.

The settlement is one of the largest in Australian tax history, with the mining giant paying about $1 billion over and above its original tax filings, following in the path of other multinationals forced to pay up.

The company will pay an additional $613 million for unpaid tax between 2010 and 2021, on top of $378 million it has paid back on amended assessments issued by the ATO, including interest and penalties.

The miner was investigated by the ATO’s Tax Avoidance Taskforce for using Singapore as a marketing hub of products, including aluminium and iron ore, to reduce Australian tax bills in a practice known as transfer pricing. ATO

Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Saint said importantly the settlement locks in future tax flows to Australia going forward.

Source: Rio Tinto settles $1b tax bill: ATO – Michael West

TAX

SA Greens push for new vacant property tax – Michael West

The Greens have urged the South Australian government to introduce a tax on vacant residential properties after reports thousands are empty across the state.

Source: SA Greens push for new vacant property tax – Michael West

TAX

Local nurse pays more tax than mining company | The Shovel

A Brisbane nurse completing her tax return has calculated that she contributed $13,000 in annual tax payments this year, approximately $13,000 more than the average multi-national mining company operating in Australia.

Local nurse pays more tax than mining company | The Shovel
TAX

Let’s Go after the Ill-Gotten, Tax-Evading Gains of All Oligarchs, not just Russian Ones

Can we please get serious about taxing the rich? Polls show that hefty majorities of people in the United States — and around the world — believe the rich ought to be paying more at tax time. Yet our contemporary don’t-tax-the-rich era has now entered its fifth consecutive decade. Egalitarian tax policy, you could say, has hit a rough patch.

Source: Let’s Go after the Ill-Gotten, Tax-Evading Gains of All Oligarchs, not just Russian Ones

Republicans, TAX

Senate GOP Agenda Would Hike Taxes on Poorest 40% by Average of $1,000

ITEP graphic

By contrast, the plan unveiled by Republican Sen. Rick Scott would not increase taxes on the top 1% by a single penny. Jake Johnson March 7, 2022 The policy agenda that Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida unveiled last month—and has continued to promote despite mounting backlash—would hike annual taxes on the poorest 40% of people in the United States by $1,000 on average while not raising taxes on the richest 1% by a single penny.

Source: Senate GOP Agenda Would Hike Taxes on Poorest 40% by Average of $1,000

Filed under:
TAX

The usual suspects star in annual Tax Office data-dump paying donut on their billions – Michael West Media

If there is proof that Morrison leads a do-nothing Government surely this is it

An important step in the battle between corporate tax lawyers constant innovations around Australia’s tax regulations. The report also reveals that roughly a third of all the companies analysed have paid zero tax, a metric consistent with previous years and one which Saint did not think would change substantially, even leading into the 2020-21 pandemic year.

While the Pandemic shellacked many businesses, the $90bn in JobKeeper subsidies propped many of them up, and some $20bn of it was wasted on companies which enjoyed rising revenues. Another $20bn went to corporations which did not need it, much was spent of executive bonuses and dividends to shareholders.

This time next year will will get a better idea of whether the corporate culprits which snaffled the massive JobKeeper subsidies paid their fair share of tax.

Source: The usual suspects star in annual Tax Office data-dump paying donut on their billions – Michael West Media

TAX

One-third of big businesses in Australia still don’t pay any tax five years into ATO crackdown | Tax | The Guardian

The sign of an Australian Taxation Office shopfront

One-third of large companies in Australia still don’t pay any tax despite a taxation office crackdown on the big end of town that has been under way for five years.

Source: One-third of big businesses in Australia still don’t pay any tax five years into ATO crackdown | Tax | The Guardian

TAX

Trump Faces New Legal Threats on Both Sides of the Atlantic – Mother Jones

An array of legal investigations into the business run by former President Donald Trump picked up new steam in the last two weeks. From Scotland to the tony New York City suburbs, Trump’s sprawling empire is facing new threats on at least three fronts.

Source: Trump Faces New Legal Threats on Both Sides of the Atlantic – Mother Jones

TAX

Make them Pay Up: Pandora Leaks show that the Super-Rich rob Public of $200 bn a year in lost Tax Revenues

The recently released Pandora Papers, a trove of nearly 12 million documents, shines some light on the mechanisms by which the wealthy squirrel away their gains. One example jumps out: Tony Blair. The former British prime minister and his lawyer wife Cherie purchased a multi-million-dollar townhouse in London as her office but did it in such a way as to avoid paying a tax on the sale. In this offshore financial sleight of hand, they skipped out on paying several hundred thousand dollars to the very government over which Blair once presided. The maneuver, which was perfectly legal, is salient for two reasons. First, Blair himself had initially railed against tax dodges of this nature. “Offshore trusts get tax relief while homeowners pay VAT on insurance premiums,” he said as Labor Party leader. “We will create a tax system that is fair which is related to ability to pay.” Second, Blair celebrated a “third way” that was supposedly an accommodation between socialism and capitalism. When it came to global markets, Blair wanted “to remove regulatory burdens and to untie the hands of business,” as he put it in a celebrated 1999 speech.

Source: Make them Pay Up: Pandora Leaks show that the Super-Rich rob Public of $200 bn a year in lost Tax Revenues

TAX

Should a death tax be reintroduced in Australia?

Australia is one of only a few OECD countries without a death duty.

Australia is one of only a handful of developed countries that does not have a death duty but the economic case for redistributing funds from wealthy estates back into public coffers is growing as inequality rises.

Source: Should a death tax be reintroduced in Australia?

TAX

The Global Tax System Is Broken. We Can’t Trust Rich Countries to Fix It.

The world is finally recognizing the harms of corporate tax avoidance. But the OECD’s solution to the problem is designed by rich countries, for rich countries. We need an alternative.

Source: The Global Tax System Is Broken. We Can’t Trust Rich Countries to Fix It.

TAX

The Pandora Papers show the line between tax avoidance and tax evasion has become so blurred we need to act against both

OECD chief Mathias Cormann has brokered a deal for a global minimum corporate tax rate. OECD (CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO) Some of what’s been uncovered in the Pandora Papers is illegal (“evasion”) but much might not be (“avoidance”, aided by anonimity). The effect is the same. Dollars that ought to have been paid in tax are withheld and used for the benefit of people who aren’t keen to admit to owning them.

Source: The Pandora Papers show the line between tax avoidance and tax evasion has become so blurred we need to act against both

TAX

The Secret IRS Files: Trove Of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How The Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax | HuffPost

ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits. Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.

Source: The Secret IRS Files: Trove Of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How The Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax | HuffPost

TAX

G-7 Nations Sign Pact To Make Corporations Pay Fairer Taxes | HuffPost

Hardly a radical recommendation

LONDON (AP) — The Group of Seven wealthy democracies agreed Saturday to support a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15% in order to deter multinational companies from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in low-rate countries.

Source: G-7 Nations Sign Pact To Make Corporations Pay Fairer Taxes | HuffPost

TAX

Cigarettes, whiskey and electric cars – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Diesel vehicles produce particulate which is hazardous to health when significant quantities have been ingested. They and petrol vehicles both produce carbon monoxide and other environmental nasties. It is rational to introduce price signals to modify behaviour that is injurious to health and welfare and governments have done this for decades. So why the proposal to tax something that is environmentally better than the alternative, such as energy efficient electric/hybrid vehicles? Since the justification is apparently that all vehicles should be treated equally to fund repairs, maintenance and new road construction, why doesn’t the transport industry ‘pay its way’ when its competition, the railway system, is forced to. Sounds like vested interests – doesn’t it? What do you think?

Source: Cigarettes, whiskey and electric cars – » The Australian Independent Media Network

TAX

Netflix: What’s the Scam? – Michael West

Netflix: What’s the Scam?

Netflix Australia has produced a brilliant fantasy. Suspend disbelief now! Netflix claims it made a loss in Australia last year, in the year of Covid when we were locked down watching too much Netflix. You can watch this latest Netflix fantasy for just $41, the price of its financial statements from the corporate regulator ASIC. What’s the scam? Netflix’s 2020 fantasy accounts show revenue in Australia of just $20.5m. If you assume their 12m subscribers here pay a basic rate of $10 a month, that’s $1.4bn in revenue. So what happened to this $1.4bn? Netflix and its co-conspirator EY are “doing a Google”, that is, the caper Google used to rely on to pay zero tax before it was forced to resort to another scam. They just book their income here to an associate offshore and the minuscule amount of income they book here is “service” fees from Netflix in the Netherlands and the US. Tax seeped in at just $581k. They claim they actually turned cashflow negative in the year of Covid.

Source: Netflix: What’s the Scam? – Michael West

Corporate Tax Evasion, TAX, Tax Evasion, Tax rorts

Top 1% fails to report over 20% of income using potentially “criminal” tactics: IRS analysis | Salon.com
main article image
Why would anyone believe Trump wasn’t one?

The wealthiest 1% of Americans fail to report more than 20% of their income to the IRS, and some of those ultra-rich people use “sophisticated evasion technologies” and criminal tactics to avoid paying their full share, according to a new analysis by researchers at the IRS and economists. The analysis estimated that the top 1% of households fail to report 21% of their income. Nearly a third of that is through sophisticated schemes that random IRS audits fail to detect. The trend is even starker among the top 0.1% of earners, whose unreported income may be twice as high as the IRS estimates.

Top 1% fails to report over 20% of income using potentially “criminal” tactics: IRS analysis | Salon.com
TAX

Faced With COVID-19, Africa Shouldn’t Worry About Debt, But How to Make Tax Evaders Pay | The Smirking Chimp

That is why we are instead advocating for the introduction of a minimum global effective corporate tax rate of 25 percent. Any multinational company that accounts for its profits in a tax haven would be taxed in its home country at this minimum rate. This would reduce the incentive for multinationals to transfer their profits to tax havens.

Faced With COVID-19, Africa Shouldn’t Worry About Debt, But How to Make Tax Evaders Pay | The Smirking Chimp
TAX, Uncategorized

Australia’s super funds pay up to 33% less tax than advertised

How incompetant is the ATO ?

The tax paid by superannuation funds on their earnings is often less than 10%, much lower than the headline rate of 15%, according to research by the University of Technology Sydney. And in an industry worth $2.7 trillion, this means a huge difference in the tax take for government. Callum Foote reports.

via Australia’s super funds pay up to 33% less tax than advertised

Informed Comment, TAX, Uncategorized

How to Debate Libertarians on Taxes — And Destroy Them

via How to Debate Libertarians on Taxes — And Destroy Them

Filed under:
TAX, Uncategorized

Should tax dodgers get taxpayer-funded COVID-19 bailout? – Michael West

Tax haven, Cayman Islands

Meanwhile Trump authorised Treasury to stop the $1,200  cheques sent to those that owe the government any money. (ODT)

Canada has become the latest country to refuse pandemic bailout money for tax dodgers. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joins leaders of Denmark, Poland and France in axing financial aid to corporations registered in offshore tax havens. Noel Turnbull reports.

Should tax dodgers get taxpayer-funded COVID-19 bailout? – Michael West

TAX, Uncategorized

Company of Anthony Pratt, Australia’s richest man, legally pays virtually no tax | Australia news | The Guardian

Donald Trump and Scott Morrison with Anthony Pratt during a tour of Pratt Industries in Wapakoneta, Ohio, 22 September 2019

Company of Anthony Pratt, Australia’s richest man, legally pays virtually no tax | Australia news | The Guardian

TAX, Uncategorized

Billionaires to 2020 Presidential Hopefuls: ‘America Has a Moral, Ethical, and Economic Responsibility to Tax Our Wealth More’ | Common Dreams News

protester

It’s a cry for adjustment not systemic change (ODT)

via Billionaires to 2020 Presidential Hopefuls: ‘America Has a Moral, Ethical, and Economic Responsibility to Tax Our Wealth More’ | Common Dreams News

TAX, Uncategorized

Even the 1% Know They Aren’t Paying Their Fair Share: New Poll Shows 60% of Millionaires Support Warren’s Ultra-Wealth Tax | Common Dreams News

It’s still Trickle Down Economics (ODT)

via Even the 1% Know They Aren’t Paying Their Fair Share: New Poll Shows 60% of Millionaires Support Warren’s Ultra-Wealth Tax | Common Dreams News

TAX

Your income tax questions answered in three easy charts: Labor and Coalition proposals side by side

The Coalition’s philosophy is about restraining tax as a share of the economy, even if that means it will need to shrink government spending as a share of GDP (in ways that are not yet unexplained).

Labor is signalling that it is more comfortable with the tax share creeping up — mostly thanks to increased contributions from high income earners — but it will make sure lower income earners don’t end up worse off.

Who says elections aren’t a contest of ideas?

Your income tax questions answered in three easy charts: Labor and Coalition proposals side by side

TAX

Don’t Fall for the Right’s Favorite Lie About Taxes

Essential Reading

This is a classic example of how to lie with statistics. It’s shameless but effective propaganda, which is why the people with the most to gain from it pay propagandists to spread it widely. Anyone pushing this is trying to fool you, and you should ignore anything they say on any subject.

This means the rich pay a far lower payroll tax rate than regular people. A nurse making a salary of $50,000 per year pays (counting both the employee and employer side) 12.4 percent in OASDI taxes (for Social Security and disability insurance). But a sitcom star making a thousand times that, or $50 million a year, will pay the 12.4 percent only on the initial $130,000 of their salary, working out to a total OASDI tax rate of just 0.03 percent on their $50 million. And because OASDI taxes are only levied on earned income — meaning, money you make from a job — a billionaire investor with a $50 million annual income from dividends and capital gains will pay exactly zero percent in OASDI taxes. (Keep Reading)

via Don’t Fall for the Right’s Favorite Lie About Taxes

TAX, Uncategorized

How A Spat Between Two Rich People Gave Congress The Power To Get Trump’s Tax Returns | HuffPost Australia

How A Spat Between Two Rich People Gave Congress The Power To Get Trump’s Tax

Trump’s Returns

Mnuchin is not yet complying with the Democrats’ request for Trump’s tax return partially because he does not see “the legitimacy of the asserted legislative purpose.”

The history of the provision shows, however, that Congress enacted this measure to enable investigations into private individuals and the highest-ranking government officials to ensure that they are not getting favorable treatment or evading their taxes.

Maryanne Trump Barry, the president’s sister, resigned her seat as a federal appeals court judge on Thursday to avoid an investigation into her ― and her brother’s ― alleged tax fraud.

via How A Spat Between Two Rich People Gave Congress The Power To Get Trump’s Tax Returns | HuffPost Australia

TAX, Uncategorized

Tax Cuts: The Great Conservative Scam – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Conclusion

We need to set this anti-tax nonsense aside. Tax is how government pays for itself. Indeed, it is necessary to fund all the crap that conservatives love. On a wider scale, tax is citizens contributing financially to their society. This in turn pays for the government services those citizens enjoy. This is Rousseau’s social contract. In the modern world, this means that everyone contributes to the cost of, and enjoys, health, education, infrastructure, transportation and other essential services. But that’s communism according to conservatives. My response to that is if you hate socialism so much, resign from office immediately and claim not one penny of that big, fat pension. As I have said previously, conservatives do not hate socialism per se, they hate certain recipients.

The anti-tax propaganda needs to go and we need to, as the line goes, be a society, not just an economy.

via Tax Cuts: The Great Conservative Scam – » The Australian Independent Media Network

TAX

Cashed-up retirees getting a refund for tax they never paid? We’ve hit peak rort | Richard Denniss | Opinion | The Guardian

Australian currency

via Cashed-up retirees getting a refund for tax they never paid? We’ve hit peak rort | Richard Denniss | Opinion | The Guardian

TAX, Uncategorized

Union asks who lobbied Coalition to drop tax transparency measure | Australia news | The Guardian

Kelly O’Dwyer with Scott Morrison

In 2016  the realease of the Panama Papers resulted in the shining of a light on the participants in the very secret tax evasion and money laundering schemes of the world’s 1%. The Trump name appeared over 4000 times. What happened in Australia and it’s list of names. Moreover the LNP hasn’t increased regulation but continued it’s ambition to decrease it. In fact coupled with this measure this government intends to make tax evasion and money laundering easier.(ODT)

The Australian Taxation Office has said it is investigating about 800 Australians in relation to the Panama Papers. However, in 2014 the ATO also gave amnesty to a number of wealthy individuals with offshore income and assets.

http://List of people named in the Panama Papers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_named_in_the_Panama_Papers

Australia’s top companies and richlisters

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australias-top-companies-richlisters-revealed-in-panama-papers-20160510-goql2l.html

Unions have demanded the government come clean on which businesses lobbied it to drop plans to introduce a register to help stamp out multinational tax avoidance.

The government has previously made clear its commitment to introduce a beneficial ownership register, a simple and effective transparency measure that curbs profit-shifting and tax avoidance by showing the public who is really behind often-complex corporate structures.

The former assistant treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer and current assistant treasurer, Stuart Robert, both pledged to introduce a register.
Coalition abandons plan for register to help beat tax avoidance
Read more

But Treasury is now saying no such commitment was made.

Union asks who lobbied Coalition to drop tax transparency measure | Australia news | The Guardian

TAX

Big business: Legally avoiding tax the Australian way

the system is designed by the lackeys of those who have an interest as a class in not paying tax, or in paying as little as possible. The argument that companies “pay all the tax as legally required” fails to address the question of why the tax system is rigged in their favour.

Speaking of political influence, it is interesting to note that some of the big contributors to the political coffers of the Coalition are also companies which pay no tax.

As Gareth Hutchens and Nick Evershed reported in The Guardian:

… the Greens have pointed out at least eight of the largest companies paid more money in donations to the Labor and Liberal and National parties in 2016-17 than they paid in corporate tax that year.

Chevron paid $82,228 in political donations in 2016-17, Origin Energy $103,574, Woodside Petroleum $279,000, Whitehaven Coal $30,000, and Santos $102,516, but none of them paid corporate tax that year.

Even when they are making a loss (either because of market conditions or tax avoidance or other circumstances) should big business not be paying a contribution, such as an operating fee or licence perhaps to the rest of us? This could be based on their gross income for the privilege of carrying on business here, and using the infrastructure, educated workforce and other benefits paid for by our taxes.

 They do elsewhere (ODT)

via Big business: Legally avoiding tax the Australian way

TAX

One-third of large Australian companies paid no tax, ATO data show – Politics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Australian Taxation Office

About one-third of large companies have failed to pay tax, even though they made a gross profit, but the Tax Office says most have good reasons, according to the latest corporate tax transparency report released today.

Of the 2,109 entities monitored by the ATO in data covering 2016-17, 66 per cent paid tax although the remainder did not as they claimed tax losses and concessions that can go back several years.

via One-third of large Australian companies paid no tax, ATO data show – Politics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

TAX

Use inheritance tax to tackle inequality of wealth, says OECD | Inequality | The Guardian

Rolls-Royce car

Wealth inequality is even greater than income inequality and is on the rise, says new report

via Use inheritance tax to tackle inequality of wealth, says OECD | Inequality | The Guardian

TAX

We need to talk about Jean – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Let’s start at the beginning. We knew the Liberals, in concert with their media arm, the Murdoch press, would launch a propaganda scare campaign against Labor’s very sensible, fiscally responsible, wealth-inequality battling policy to no longer give self-funded retirees cash they don’t need. How did we know? Because that’s what the Liberals and their media arm, the Murdoch press, exist to do. The sky is falling. Everyone is ruined. The economy will rise up like an angry god and smite us all for hurting those who have bestowed trickle-down wealth upon us. And so on and so forth.

I must admit, it’s a sad turn of events that the likes of Leigh Sales on ABC’s 730 is also playing this game, seeking out Lyle-we need those dividends to live-Essery, to show their sad sad faces on TV, to tell Labor how naughty and mean they are for hurting Jean and Lyle, who did nothing to deserve this. But that’s the thing. Jean and Lyle did do nothing to deserve this magical cash-back bribe from Howard and Costello, other than possibly considering voting for Pauline Hanson, and no one should be rewarded for that dirty idea.

via We need to talk about Jean – » The Australian Independent Media Network

"politics of envy", TAX

How some of the wealthiest Australians pay ‘negative’ tax

The tax treatment of earnings generated from owning shares is complicated. Because it is complicated most people think it is boring. Because it’s boring we don’t discuss it much. However Australia’s dividend imputation system is important, unique to the world and comes with approximately a $30 billion dollar a year price tag. So whatever you think about Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen’s announcement it is a good thing they have got us talking about one of the least understood aspects of tax policy in Australia.

The complexity of the Australian tax system hides many sins, one of the most inequitable of which is the fact that some of Australia’s wealthiest citizens pay negative tax. The ATO actually hands other people’s money to some of the wealthiest people in the country. Indeed, while Centrelink chases some of our poorest citizens for seven-year-old debt, one lucky non-taxpayer actually received $2.5 million in “tax credits” in a single year.

via How some of the wealthiest Australians pay ‘negative’ tax

TAX

Further Debunking GOP Claims, Small Businesses Say Tax Bill Won’t Bring Benefits to Workers

This is not what Malcolm Turnbull is saying in Australia. To complain according to Finance Minister Corman is just “Envy Politics” that Corporations and the rich are getting richer. (OD)

 

While corporations are enjoying a permanent tax cut which has mainly benefited their shareholders, small businesses also say the law has done little to even the playing field

Just a few months after President Donald Trump’s tax reform passed, small businesses are pushing back against Republican claims that the law will bolster their ability to hire new employees and give out raises to workers—as corporations reap the vast majority of the benefits of the legislation.

Large corporations made clear even before the plan was passed in December that they would use the $1.3 trillion they expect to save as a result of the law to line the pockets of their shareholders—not invest in their employees and new hires as Republicans claimed. Now, small businesses are saying that their workers aren’t benefiting much from the tax law either.

The advocacy group Businesses for Responsible Tax Reform polled entrepreneurs in Maine, Arizona, Tennessee, and Nevada and found that seven in 10 had no plans to hire new employees as a result of the tax plan, while 60 percent said their workers would not be given raises.

More than half of the owners said the law favored large businesses over small ones and did nothing to put smaller companies on a level playing field with big corporations.

via Further Debunking GOP Claims, Small Businesses Say Tax Bill Won’t Bring Benefits to Workers

TAX

As workers notice no Raise, the Tax Scam Is Starting to Sink In | Informed Comment

As workers notice no Raise, the Tax Scam Is Starting to Sink In

The Koch Brothers alone will spend $20 million on ads selling the tax bill. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the $1.4 billion they stand to gain every year in tax breaks. It’s also a tiny fraction of their overall campaign spending on the 2018 midterms elections, which is projected to reach $400 million.

The Kochs have their work cut out for them. A new poll from Politico shows most workers report seeing no increase in their take home pay after the new tax laws took effect.

This is important.

The whole premise behind adding $1.5 trillion to the debt, giving massive handouts to the ultra-wealthy, and giving a tax break to the nation’s most profitable corporations was that working folks would also get a bit of cash.

Turns out, they’re not seeing that money. But the PR push is having an impact.

via As workers notice no Raise, the Tax Scam Is Starting to Sink In | Informed Comment

TAX, Uncategorized

Almost $6 billion revenue, but CityLink operators pay no company tax

An artist's impression of the West Gate Tunnel.

CityLink toll road operator Transurban paid no company tax to the Australian government for three years despite revenues of nearly $6 billion.

via Almost $6 billion revenue, but CityLink operators pay no company tax

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As Paul Ryan Touts a Secretary’s $1.50 Weekly Pay Hike, Koch Bros. Reap $1.4B from GOP Tax Plan | Democracy Now!

s2 us economic divide

via As Paul Ryan Touts a Secretary’s $1.50 Weekly Pay Hike, Koch Bros. Reap $1.4B from GOP Tax Plan | Democracy Now!

TAX, Uncategorized

Austerity, deficits and the tax the Coalition won’t collect

But how much tax revenue is bleeding? The answer is, almost exactly the same quantum as the $30-40 billion annual deficit.

via Austerity, deficits and the tax the Coalition won’t collect