A few years ago we outed News for orchestrating a $903 million loan to Foxtel. As if Foxtel needed a loan at the very apogee of its profitability. No matter, the loan carried a hefty interest rate of 12 per cent. So News was effectively lending money to its cashed-up pay TV business Foxtel at 12 per cent, claiming tax deductions on the loan and lending the money back to itself at an interest rate of zero.
Predatory capitalism has become visible across the world as neo-liberalism becomes fully transnational. Consultancies working to authoritarian rules have consumed big business by making executives richer. They may be set to engulf governments and even entire societies.
This litany of world-wide probity scandals suggests something more sinister, more frightening. This interlocking network of advisors provides group-thinking to business and government executives worldwide, the advice is accepted and practiced everywhere. ‘Best practice’ it seems is ‘make as much money as fast as possible, regardless of consequences. Highly intelligent people run international business, yet they act as if the planet is a Monopoly™ game.
Is there a world government of big business? Probably not, but the big consultancies with such international influence must be candidates, coordinating common attitudes and practices. Where does tax avoidance and tax havens and the growing disparity between the few very rich and the numerous poor of the planet fit with this scenario? – right in the middle of course – with 1 trillion dollars moved annually into tax havens with little international regulation.
As citizens we must wonder – over 50 years of scientific evidence of global warming still strenuously denied, seen in the failure of industry and governments to seriously combat it. Why do so few leaders act to stop all CO2 emissions? Do business consultants provide ethical climate advice to address accelerating emissions? – I fear they don’t. If business and governments have but one view, where then is democracy heading? We must first be rid of their pernicious neo-liberal ideology.
Source: The swarm: International consultancies – Pearls and Irritations
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)
Source: Süddeutsche.de
There must be a debate about the ethics of tax avoidance and evasion. Board members who approve this behaviour should be forced to answer for it
Is there a correlation between mistreating staff and avoiding tax? Between profiting from people’s misery and tax avoidance? John Passant reports.
Source: Big business tax watch: Do corporate tax avoiders also mistreat their staff?
Heartening to see somebody in Canberra looking after the broader interests of the nation as opposed to the distracting burqa fluff.
Greens leader Christine Milne managed to get two vital senate inquiries going: one into tax evasion by corporations and the other into the “gold plating” of electricity networks, which has been the main driver of rising energy bills.
Inquiry is into corporate tax “evasion” rather than “avoidance”. Avoidance is the legal one, evasion illegal.
The silence from the business lobby has been chilling. All taxpayer segments are being encouraged to deal with the ATO online and – if the ATO’s data analysis indicates that individuals and small business are compliant – they’ll rarely be bothered by the ATO in the future (a ‘light touch’ approach).”
Much is made of the “need to collaborate internationally” to pursue tax reform. No surprise there. They know the G20 efforts to curb tax avoidance should amount to nothing.
No surprise either that the ATO’s “new approach” is lauded by tax professionals.
Were there a peak body for Katie Perry fans, they might steal the institute’s motto nec timens nec favens (without fear or favour). Andrew Bolt stole this for the end of his Bolt Report
Avoidance only becomes evasion if the authorities drag you off to court and win. If they force a settlement, it is secret. So when a company pays little or no tax while claiming it obeys the law, it is likely that the law has simply not been tested.
It was terrific to see Wesfarmers’ chief executive Richard Goyder and Harvey Norman chairman Gerry Harvey speak on the subject this week.
“My personal view is that the tax issue will become a bigger one for companies, and will go directly to their reputation. Norman already operates in Ireland and Singapore, it would be easy for him to dodge tax.
Others such as the head of Google Australia, Maile Carnegie, have decried the media “naming and shaming” corporations on tax. Sadly, naming and shaming is the only thing which works. Without naming and shaming, there would have been no parliamentary inquiry.
In the extraordinary lengths to which they go to avoid tax, aided and abetted by government, Facebook provides a classic case. Although it has a market value of $US200 billion ($228 billion) and sales of $US10 billion-plus, Facebook managed to win an exemption from the corporate regulator in order to class itself as – to quote the exemption, “a small pty company controlled by a foreign coy which is not part of large group”.
What part of $200 billion is not large? The point is that it did that to skive out of having to file consolidated financial statements in which it would have to provide greater disclosures on tax and transactions with its associates offshore.
The failure of transparency and proper disclosure had made it open season for big tax avoiders in this country. We don’t need G20. What we need is more corporate leadership in the mould of Goyder and Harvey and some spine from our political leaders.
olddogthoughts 