Under Tony Abbott, some 3000+ ATO tax-trained investigators were given the sack many of who went on to be employed by the big four along with many other firms advising corporations prepared to pay for their skills and knowledge of tax evasion.
An ATO amnesty arrangement to collect back taxes allowed the biggest corporations in the country to self-declare and negotiate the terms of their own settlement because the Department had lost it’s most skilled investigators. This LNP-sanctioned arrangement was and has never been available to all Australians. Why was that privilege allowed by Abbott the LNP and the ATO one might well ask?
He revealed that the Australian Tax Office (ATO) reached a settlement with PwC in March — long after the firm’s involvement in the tax leak scandal was publicly known — over PwC’s false claims of legal professional privilege that gave the big rour firm a 50% discount on applicable penalties. As part of the deal with the ATO, PwC didn’t have to admit any liability.
Taxpayers stump up for “man shot in buttocks” journalism as Google Australia pays a pittance in tax again thanks to “world first media reforms”. Michael West reports on a joke.
China’s “zero Covid” policy has sparked rare protests across the nation of nearly a billion and a half people. Which led me to think about our very own failed “zero” policy here in the United States. Zero corporate tax. To be fair, it’s not a policy per se, but is clearly an aspiration that has been achieved.
Scores of huge corporations — which have been enjoying record profits — have paid nothing in federal income tax over the past few years. Never mind the bargain basement rates of 30% or even 15%, these multibillion dollar corporations are paying 0%, or even a negative rate (which of course translates to a refund).
He’s an expert in the Art of Delay not the Art of the Deal
The Supreme Court refused to hear Donald Trump’s plea to keep his tax returns out of Congress’ hands on Tuesday. This action finally ends the battle Trump began fighting in 2016, even before taking office when he became the first president in modern history to refuse to reveal what was on his tax returns.
The schism between the lifters and leaners in corporate Australia has deepened. BHP, Rio and the banks are tipping in massive tax while tax paid by fossil fuel giants remains paltry, abjectly failing to merit a social licence to operate in Australia. Callum Foote peruses the latest tax data.
What’s the scam? It’s the fossil fuel corporations again, the usual suspects, paying no income tax despite billions in income. For yet another year: Exxon nought, Shell nought, Ampol, BP and APLNG nought, and Chevron putting them all to shame with the $30 in income tax paid on its $9bn in revenues.
Cold comfort for the swimming teacher going to jail for attempting to claim $250k of false GST refunds, the doctor sentenced to seven months jail for non-lodgements, the bank manager sentenced to three years’ jail for attempting to defraud the Commonwealth of $390,000, and the other small (or no more than medium) players.Double standards are rife. When will the executives of a big corporate such as Lendlease be prosecuted?
Robert Reich reveals the 3 things Joe Biden can do to lower gas prices and save Democrats in the midterms – Raw Story – Celebrating 18 Years of Independent Journalism
Timid, worse than Donald Trump but better than the Coalition. That’s the verdict on Labor’s policy to combat multinational tax avoiders. Although large corporations have been subsidised through the pandemic like never before, they will still now enjoy years of tax-free profits thanks to gaping holes in Australia’s tax system. Callum Foote consults tax law experts.
Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a chorus of voices is trying to convince ordinary consumers that paying higher gas prices is some kind of patriotic act. Big Oil doesn’t need the extra profits — it needs to have those profits taxed away.
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.
So, we had a call the other day from a nice woman at the Tax Office, or it might have been an outsourced call centre. In any case, there was apparently a late BAS statement or something, and we – that is the small business which operates Michael West Media – was in danger of incurring a fine. Michael West reports on the gaping double standards between government enforcement of big business and the rest.
Billionaires now hold so much of the world’s wealth, their apologists argue, there’s no choice but to rely on them for philanthropy. But we can’t take our eyes off the ball: We need to tax the ultrarich out of existence.
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.
The super-rich have bought armies of lobbyists to keep their taxes minuscule and to create tax loopholes large enough to drive their Lamborghinis through
Were I Trump’s Lawyer For The Day, I’d advise him to purchase a first-class ticket to Botswana or Brunei, neither of which has an extradition treaty with the United States. Because things are getting pretty ugly for him in New York.
SCOTUS denies Trump bid to shield tax returns Donald Trump suffered a major setback on Monday in his long quest to conceal details of his finances as the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for a New York City prosecutor to obtain the former president’s tax returns and other financial records as part of a criminal investigation.
Angus Taylor’s rescue package for the oil industry is a testament to the ability of large corporations to game governments. The latest Tax Office transparency data shows that oil and gas juggernauts are, again, Australia’s biggest tax cheats, yet are demanding and getting more public subsidies to prop up their oil refineries. Michael West reports on the good and the bad in multinational tax dodging land.
Even though Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, raked in billions in profits last year, new documents show their tax rate actually went below zero. This may help explain why CEO Stephen Schwarzman has spent nearly $25 million to help Trump and GOP senators win: to ensure the tax breaks enriching Blackstone stay in place.
President Donald Trump paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years, according to a bombshell report in The New York Times. Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax filings and is the only president in modern times not to make them public, paid $US750 in taxes to the federal government the year he was elected, 2016, and $US750 again in his first year in office.
The Australian tax office claims it has been ripped off by as much as hundreds of millions of dollars under mass tax evasion schemes allegedly run by professional advisers
Collect the taxes they haven’t paid. Remember Abbott shrunk the Taxation Dept of 3500 of it’s most experienced tax investigators. Well, now they have jumped the gutter and are working for the tax minimisation industry.(ODT)
The leader of the Birther attack on Obama refuses to show his tax papers (ODT)
New York: US President Donald Trump’s latest efforts to block a grand jury subpoena for his tax returns could provide him with the immunity from prosecution that the Supreme Court has rejected, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a court filing on Monday.
Trump was dealt a blow by the Supreme Court last month when in a 7 to 2 decision, the court said he was not protected by presidential immunity from state-court level actions. The court allowed for the case to get sent back to the US District Court in Manhattan for any additional challenges Trump would seek to make.
Trump has already succeeded in his goal of running for president twice without disclosing basic financial information. He has already succeeded in using the office of the president to shield himself from potential prosecution of his suspected financial crimes. Trump has already won. The only question now is how much the rest of us will lose.
We should expect decisions on these two cases in late June. The Supreme Court will then tell us how much more of our democracy must be sacrificed in the service of Donald Trump.
The ATO’s corporate tax transparency data again shows that hundreds of companies have been able to reduce their tax bills to zero
ATO deputy commissioner Rebecca Saint said the agency was still seeing some companies avoid tax by shifting profits offshore
Company financial accounts do not always give the full picture of tax positions and the ATO wants companies to be more transparent
The 1% impose the intrinsic instability of their system on the entire population, and then get the government to respond with deficits that even further benefit and reward the greed of the very same 1% oligarchs and corporations.
Ironically, we’ve borrowed so much as a nation from the rich, large corporations and some foreign countries that even they now are unsure they want to continue to lending to us because of today’s astronomical debt. To maintain their loan profits, they want us to eliminate/severely reduce programs for poor and sick people with austerity/cuts in all social and public health programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.
The absurdity and danger to our community of such an economic policy is exceeded only by its gross injustice.
Real-estate developer Donald Trump in 1992 lived in a New York luxury apartment, travelled by limousine and had personal bodyguards. That year, he also reported a negative $US750 million ($1.08 billion) adjusted gross income to the IRS.
Trump is the primary “expense” that drains his companies dry to the state of Easter eggs “hollow” and all debt and then they simply implode. There is nothing new particularly when banks aren’t regulated. He gets loans from banks too scared to declare their over risk and first valuing assets and packaging not on collateral security of the company but on a dream. He doesn’t do the financing himself but happily pays a premium for any broker or banker that will secure the loan on a 0% asset.
Get the money spend it as wages and expenses on himself then devalue back to the real asset assett value and bankruptcy or reveal the banking folly. Every banker shyster and broker will help avoid the worst if the commissions are high enough and more commissions. All he needed to hand his request to Wall St and they’d jump. They after all they created the art and caused the GFC and sent nations to the wall like Greece. Mind you, you the paid rating and credit agencies handsomly to assist in the scam but that wasn’t Trump’s problem. Effectively Trump was always the face of a scam, a Ponzi scheme, a chain letter a business that shared profits with the top end of town. There was never anything new to be seen just bigger. All a little bit legal but a top down scam that the nation bailed out.
Alan Bond said it if your looking for a small loan the banks own you. When that loan is too big you own the banks because they can’t reveal it. The difference Bond went to jail aan Trump became President. (ODT)
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