Corporate Australia may have lost the debate on tax reform by pitching company tax cuts in isolation of wider reforms and at a time when Australia's CEOs are getting paid out millions of dollars, says Australian Institute of Company Directors chairwoman Elizabeth Proust.
"The danger with the tax debate is if business is seen just to be advocating a cut in corporate taxes without looking at the system as a whole – for individuals as well as companies," said Ms Proust, who is also chairwoman of Nestle Australia.
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Company tax cuts: where to now?
Reducing company tax has become a political tug-of-war - here's how the government and Labor arrived at their positions.
"It sounds like business again just being concerned about itself."
"The argument that you hear from CEOs who have just earned X millions dollars saying, 'we need a corporate tax cut', really is very hollow," she said in an interview with Fairfax Media ahead of the Australian Governance Summit being held in Melbourne on Thursday and Friday.
"When they talk about taxation they also need to talk about GST, individual taxation and indeed the whole question of government spending. But often they pick out small bits."
Ms Proust's comments follow Treasury boss John Fraser on Wednesday urging Parliament to consider cutting the company tax rate, saying it would be "critical" to respond to international competition.
"We have to recognise that we are now in a very competitive environment when it comes to corporate taxation and attracting investment," Mr Fraser told a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
"Not just with our regional neighbours, but countries such as the United Kingdom, and possibly, the United States."
Britain is cutting its company tax rate from 20 to 17 per cent while keeping a higher rate for banks.
The Trump administration wants to cut the US company tax rate from 35 to 15 per cent.
The Turnbull government wants to lower Australia's company rate from 30 to 25 per cent over 10 years.
But analysis from the Grattan Institute released last month found that the proposed tax cut would cut national income for years before it boosted it and would never be self-funding.
The Grattan Institute report, *Stagnation nation? Australian investment in a low-growth world, suggests that a cheaper and more effective measure would be an investment allowance that allows companies to immediately write off a portion of their investment before depreciating the rest over time.
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