Pat McGrath of Australia’s national broadcaster ABC News reports that “About 100 Tax Office staff have begun a four year investigation into the tax affairs of big companies global companies operating in Australia.” (sic)

In an interview with Pat McGrath, Mark Konza (ATO Deputy Commissioner) said: “At the moment – and I should say this process is ongoing, so other cases will be identified over time – these 86 cases where we felt that the structuring events that had taken place seem to have a very bad effect on a company’s Australian tax position…”. Deputy Commissioner Konza continued, “We will issue assessments on companies that we think weren’t applying the law correctly. If they’re involved in profit shifting, they’ll get an assessment; they’ll get penalties as well.” Read More

A spokeswoman for Australia’s Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos has indicated that tax-base erosion and profit shifting will be a key focus of the G20 during Australia’s Presidency.

In this connection, speaking before he left for this week’s Davos conference, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said “We want to … try to ensure we have less leaky national taxation systems”.

Commentators have variously encouraged the Prime Minister to push for the publication of taxable incomes of transnational companies by local tax authorities, seek a global solution to the perceived problem and to work within the OECD tax treaty framework to Read More