Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. The corporate tax debate we're having in Australia does echo the United States' debate and does go directly to the question of the sustainability of the Australian budget. Labor believes that we need to crack down on multinational tax avoidance. We have announced a series of measures that would add directly to the bottom line of the budget. For the benefit of the House—indeed, for the benefit of the member for Gilmore—I will go through some of those measures. Labor would tighten debt deduction loopholes used by multinational companies, improving the budget by more than $4 billion over the medium term. We would introduce public reporting of country-by-country reports, which are high-level information about where and how much tax is paid by large corporations. We would provide protection for whistleblowers who report on entities evading tax to the Australian Tax Office and, where whistleblower information results in more tax being paid, we would allow them to collect a share of the tax penalty—being a reward of up to $250,000—as occurs in the United States and the United Kingdom.

We would introduce a publicly accessible register of beneficial ownership of Australian listed companies and trusts, allowing everyone to find out who really owns our firms and ensuring that shareholders can't use complex structures and sham ownership to avoid complying with corporate tax rules. We would introduce mandatory shareholding reporting of tax haven exposure. If a company is doing business in a tax haven, we believe that shareholders should know about it. There is a mood across the OECD to crack down on tax havens. Shareholders need to know if their corporate boards are making a decision to do business in a tax haven. The member for Gilmore might think it's alright to do business in a tax haven, but my guess is that the people of Gilmore would be deeply concerned about firms that were doing business in a tax haven and not informing their shareholders of that.

We would appoint a community sector representative to the Board of Taxation to ensure community sector voices are heard in tax design and review processes. We would introduce public reporting of AUSTRAC data and require the annual public release of international cashflow data. We would require government tenderers to disclose their country-of-tax domicile. If they are tendering for contracts worth more than $200,000, the Australian public have a right to know where their country-of-tax domicile is. We would develop guidelines on tax haven investment by superannuation funds, working with the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. We would require that the Australian Tax Office in its annual report provide information on the number and size of tax settlements. We would deliver more tax transparency by restoring Labor's $100 million threshold for public reporting of tax data for private firms—a threshold raised from $100 million to $200 million by the Liberals and the Greens, effectively taking two-thirds of private firms out of the tax transparency net.

We need to make sure that we have a multinational tax system with integrity, a multinational tax system which ensures that firms pay their fair share of tax. This is a worthy bill in itself, but it doesn't go far enough. We can add to the budget bottom line in a fair and responsible way. Labor urges the government to do the right thing on closing multinational tax loopholes.

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