Former treasurer Wayne Swan has doubled down on his allegations that BHP Billiton has been evading taxes for more than a decade and misleading the government about it.
Following up on comments first made using parliamentary privilege on Wednesday night, Mr Swan has gone after the mining giant in the public sphere, accusing it of profit shifting to avoid paying taxes to the Australian government.
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The Labor MP's comments come as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull warned that the tax system must encourage investment and not detract from the attractiveness of Australia as a place to do business, which has been interpreted as a criticism of the Western Australian Nationals' push for a levy of $5 on every tonne of iron ore mined in the state.
Mr Swan said in Parliament on Wednesday that BHP had been "gaming the system" by using aggressive transfer pricing – shifting profits out of Australia to a Singaporean marketing hub – denying the Australian government $5.7 billion in tax revenue. On Thursday morning he repeated the claim outside of Parliament.
![Wayne Swan during question time earlier this year.](/web/20161021175151im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/n/4/7/x/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs1515.png/1476333052932.jpg)
"We don't know the full extent of their activities or how much more the Tax Office is chasing BHP for but it is very clear, when you go through the findings and the evidence that was given at the Senate committee into tax evasion – if you have a look at a recent report that they published, their economic contributions report, where they've started to 'fess up to these back payments to the tax office – that for a long period of time, they've been involved in very aggressive transfer pricing, that is profit shifting," he told ABC radio.Â
Mr Swan, who was the country's economic leader from 2007 to 2013, and was responsible for the introduction of the highly contentious mining tax, said tax evasion was an ongoing "epidemic" and that BHP needs to come clean about the extent of its liabilities to the government.
"There are assessments coming through from the Tax Office regarding the operation of their marketing hub, which is really just using the Singapore tax shield to avoid tax by profit-shifting basically. That's what they've been doing. They have not been frank about it," he said.
Ahead of the WA election in early 2017, the WA Nationals – who are not in coalition with the Liberals – have provoked the mining industry and business community with their proposed mining tax.
![Treasurer Wayne Swan first proposed a mining tax with prime minister Kevin Rudd, before introducing it under Julia Gillard.](/web/20161021175151im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/m/6/p/t/2/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs1515.png/1476333052932.jpg)
Speaking at a Minerals Council of Australia dinner on Wednesday night, the Prime Minister said "we want a tax system that encourages growth, investment, entrepreneurship and job creation".
"The strength of our laws and the stability of our systems already make Australia attractive to worldwide investors and we want to make sure that our tax system does not detract from those advantages," Mr Turnbull said.
But the Nationals'Â idea was labelled "understandable" by Mr Swan, who ridiculed BHP's claims it is paying an effective tax rate of 57 per cent in 2015-16, including petroleum resource rent tax, corporate tax and state royalties.
"They may not have been paying the correct amount to the Queensland government and to the West Australian government for the existing royalty level so this is a very serious dispute," he said, adding that both state and federal governments were being dudded.
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