I am outraged at the report yesterday about big businesses not pain any tax.
It is appalling that some of these businesses can spend more lobbying government than they do in taxation.
It is frustrating that politicians of both sides suck up to big business and will put big business reps on boards and committees while ignoring small business owners who carry a far greater tax burden.
Businesses not paying tax ought to be banned from political donations and their employees banned from serving on government committees and authorities.
This list from the ATO ought to be updated at least annually. These companies paying not tax need to be shamed. Likewise for the companies minimising their tax, even through currently lawful means.
Big business representatives are blowhards when it comes to government policy on climate change, the mining tax and other government costs yet too many of them create revenue problems for the government by structuring their businesses such that they do not pay a fair amount of tax.
Look at the media companies as covered in the report yesterday:
- News Australia, which had a turnover of $3.9 billion between its Australian arms, had $97.2 million in net income last year and paid $4.2 million in tax.
- Fairfax Media had $1.7 billion in turnover, $69.8 million in net income and paid $16.1 million in tax.
Tax as a percentage of taxable income for News is 4% while at Fairfax it is 23%. Which company is the better corporate citizen on this measure? The more socially responsible?
News tells governments and Australians how to behave, what to believe and how the country’s finances ought to be managed yet on these numbers it does a pretty poor job. On these numbers, News Corp. has no right to bully as it does in most of its papers every day. They need to get their tax house in order out of respect for Australia and Australians.
Newsagents around Australia work their guts out to make a profit and they pay a bigger chunk of this to the government than too many big companies on the list.
Take a look at the full list. It makes me angry. There is no excuse.
These companies ripping us off suck.
I think the chart is dangerously incomplete. I can see companies suffering reputational damage when they have done nothing wrong at all.
Do they list previous losses? R&D expenditure? Saying they pay no tax does not mean they have tax to pay. We need far more data to make such an assessment, maybe we should have a Govt Dept for this, like an ATO perhaps.
This is the dumbest idea ever.
Brett the chart is issued by the ATO with background information explaining why the low tax paid could be the case. I think it is valuable the ATO has published this, not dumb at all.
Mark, the chart is incomplete
Brett I think the chart represents what the ATO says it represents.