Josh Frydenberg says Coalition will not name and shame corporate tax dodgers
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Version 0 of 1. The federal government has shot down suggestions that Australia’s biggest corporate tax dodgers should be named and shamed, ahead of a Senate committee report into tax avoidance due to be tabled on Monday. The chairman of the committee, Labor senator Sam Dastyari, has foreshadowed one of the report’s recommendations which urges the government to adopt a plan to let the Australian Tax Office (ATO) reveal corporations that are not paying their fair share. Related: Hockey backed decision not to name multinationals minimising tax to stay on good terms “The worst tax offenders should be named and shamed,” Dastyari told the ABC on Monday, adding that some large technology and mining companies are “gaming the system”. But the assistant treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has told Sky News there was no need to publicly disclose tax avoiders. “We’re not going to name and shame companies because we have better resourced the ATO, both financially and with new legislation, to go after these companies,” he said. “It doesn’t suit Australia’s purposes. “The ATO is going after these companies, and we have more than 20 audits under way.” It has been reported that the committee will make 18 recommendations, including provisions for greater information-sharing between the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Asic) and the ATO. The treasurer, Joe Hockey, has slammed Dastyari for revealing some of the recommendations before the report was tabled. “The report hasn’t been released, although I note that some media outlets have it, which is an extraordinary breach of Senate rules,” Hockey told ABC Radio on Monday. He later told reporters that Dastyari “undermines credibility by releasing a report that his own Senate committee hasn’t signed off on”. “This is a very serious issue that goes to the integrity of the entire Senate,” he said. The government had been tightening the rules to minimise tax avoidance by allocating more resources to the ATO and increasing transparency. “In December all companies that have a taxable income over $100m will have to disclose how much tax they pay in Australia,” Hockey said. But the new disclosure laws will exempt private companies, including those controlled by the mining magnate Gina Rinehart, because of kidnapping fears. In March Frydenberg told the Coalition party room that there are “real safety concerns” if the tax information of individuals is publicly available. That argument was labelled “nonsense” by Mark Zirnsak of Tax Justice Network Australia. “There is no reason why there should not be greater transparency around the tax paid by multinational companies so there can be community confidence that these companies are paying their share of tax,” he said. Related: Kidnap fears if large private companies publish tax details, says Coalition Dastyari said taxpayers would be the beneficiaries of greater transparency. “Tax minimisation is not victimless,” he said. “Every dollar that is taken out of our tax system is a dollar that is not going to a school, to a hospital, to a road. “[Naming and shaming] does two things: it allows consumer and voters to demand action from the government and, secondly, these companies do care about their reputations and they do care about their market share. “Exposing some of the worst practices, I believe, puts a lot more community pressure on these companies and I think it’s the right way to go.” Hockey said “some of the stereotypes are wrong” when it comes to public sentiment about multinationals, and that many are the top tax payers in the country. The treasurer will introduce a bill within a fortnight to increase reporting taxation between countries, to increase cooperation in exposing multinationals that do dodge tax. “I urge Labor to help me to get [it] through parliament as quickly as possible,” he said. |