En Passant

Saving money, the driver for cutting the ATO staff by 20%, is also the driver of big business tax avoidance. Business tax avoidance is systemic. It requires a systemic response, not Tax Office staff cuts.

The outcome of neoliberal policy since 1983, when Hawke Labor began implementing it and laid out the red carpet for Howard and then Abbott, has been a massive shift in wealth in Australia from labour to capital. The process of neoliberal regulatory capture in tax policy and tax law has now, if Second Commissioner Mills’ speech is any indication, also successfully infected the administration of the Australian Tax Office. All the sweet words in the world will not disguise the fact that the fox is now in charge of the revenue hen house.

My letter today to the Australian Financial Review John Without seeing the detail of the so-called ‘Google tax’, as a former Assistant Commissioner of Taxation in the international area of the ATO it appears to me there is one possibly insurmountable problem, Australia’s double tax agreement with Singapore.  (Phillip Coorey and Fleur Anderson, ‘Treasurer poised […]

Why the Australian Tax Office is losing the battle against the ‘transnationals’.

Global companies like Google, Starbucks and IKEA are cashing in on cuts to the Australian Taxation Office’s ability to make them pay their fair share of taxes here, an ATO insider has warned.

Click here to read more.

This echoes something I wrote in 2008 for the public sector informant in the Canberra Times.

Me in today’s Canberra Times letters. Scroll about half way down. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/ct-letters/big-parties-cashed-up-20140824-3e7x5.html

It is my understanding that the loss of long term experienced tax officers is already having an impact on revenue collections and with more job cuts to come the decline in collections, especially from the tax risk takers in big business, will only get worse. But not to worry. Treasurer Joe Hockey can just use that as further ‘evidence’ to back up his false claims about a Budget emergency and cut more public services and public service jobs. The 1% will be pleased.

This may be the logic. Trickle down will increase revenue. The less tax we collect today from companies will magically produce more economic activity in the future. So having people in charge of the Australian Tax Office who ‘understand’ business and the realities they face is just what capital needs. To business, tax is just another cost and the lower the costs the higher the profit and the better off all of us will be

I believe in Santa Claus too.

Tax Office staff are in shock over the Labor Government’s axing of the Commissioner of Taxation, Michael D’Ascenzo. More shocks are in store. What better way to gut the Tax Office than for business to appoint one of their own to lead it? Is there an alternative? Yes. Tax the rich and give the ATO enough funding for it to do its job as the collector of tax rather than the handmaiden of business. Make the rich pay. That is something Labor won’t do.

The Treasurer has today been telling us the Minerals Resource Rent Tax is working precisely as it should – not raising any tax. The hospital in Yes Minister worked perfectly too – it didn’t have any patients.

Despite the dropping of the Paul Hogan criminal investigation, the Wickenby criminal and/or tax noose is tightening around a number of other players.