Thread: Australia's top 40 tax dodgers

Originally Posted by Arapiles

And in both cases it's legal.

It may be legal But is it equitable and fair when the majority of Australians are paying a good percentage of their earnings PLUS GST in Tax when the BIG players are paying bugger all Tax in comparison because they have the quids to use devious lawyers and schemes to "Dodge" their responsibilities.

Originally Posted by trout1105

It may be legal But is it equitable and fair when the majority of Australians are paying a good percentage of their earnings PLUS GST in Tax when the BIG players are paying bugger all Tax in comparison because they have the quids to use devious lawyers and schemes to "Dodge" their responsibilities.

The big companies use tax minimisation, which is legal (and, as far as I am aware, they'd all be paying GST). Don't like the schemes? Then change the laws. On the other hand I remember going to parties and people would start telling me about their great tax schemes. These were tradies, small business owners and the self-employed. Inevitably they were running two sets of books or doing it all in cash. That is called tax avoidance and it is illegal. At least the big companies aren't breaking the law. There are ways of measuring the cash economy and you might be surprised at how large it is and therefore its effect on Australia's tax base. For example, some ridiculously small percentage of $100 notes are in legal circulation - the rest are obviously under people's beds or being used for large cash transactions.

But the people in Australia who do get the rough end of the tax stick are PAYE taxpayers - little in the way of legitimate deductions, no opportunities to structure and you get hit on every asset and income test, like Austudy, where you can't artificially reduce your income or assets. If I was going to reform the tax system that's where I'd start.

Couldn’t agree more. As PAYE about only deductions I can make is negatively geared property or shares. And listening to my small business friends with how they minimise they’re tax - well it’s frustrating. I don’t get salary sacrifice or car lease etc as option.

An example was when BHP I think it was created a company in Singapore to funnel all its Australian business through purely to reduce tax.
Is Harvey Norman still headquarter in Ireland for tax reasons?
May be legal, but it means everyone else is paying more to make up what is lost through such schemes.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

An example was when BHP I think it was created a company in Singapore to funnel all its Australian business through purely to reduce tax.
....
May be legal, but it means everyone else is paying more to make up what is lost through such schemes.

BHP was in dispute with the ATO about their Singapore office - and as far as I know they did not funnel "all its Australian business through there purely to reduce tax". But as for for legality, the ATO won its case against BHP, the argument being the prices charged by the Australian office to its Singapore office. This is a good example of the issues with transfer pricing, the question as always being about the prices charged.

It is worth pointing out that BHP is one of the largest single taxpayers in Australia - No.2 in December, and the additional tax they paid, although hundreds of millions, was small change compared to their total tax bill.

Note that the top eight taxpayers are the big four banks, the two big miners, and the two big supermarket chains. Those carrying on about tax dodging should perhaps acknowledge that at least some of the multinationals do in fact pay their fair share of tax - and all eight of these are among the most maligned!

No. 5.

Australia’s top 10 tax dodgers: Pomi Proprietary Ltd | The New Daily

How do you rack up $ 2.5 billion dollars in losses selling beer to Australians?

SABMiller Australia Pty Ltd - Michael West

I was in the workforce forty years. some of it as a wages, salary, salary plus commission worker and some of it self-employed. As a wage and salary earner I paid lots of income tax. Whilst self-employed I paid little or no tax using the advantages available under our Income Tax Assessment Act. This is patently unfair and there should be an overhaul of the legislation to eliminate many of the schemes and deductions available to the self-employed. Similar gross incomes should pay similar amounts of tax.

Perhaps a radical change like cancelling income tax and introducing turnover tax as a percentage of gross income. This would probably be a bit much for our lily-livered politicians whose main concern is not governing fairly and ethically but on getting re-elected.