Attorney General Mark Dreyfus is refusing to drop the prosecution of Richard Boyle, an ex-ATO employee, even though the laws have failed him. Paul Gregoire writes that it is a mystery as to why Dreyfus wants to punish Boyle.
Australian Taxation Office (ATO)
Richard Boyle, who exposed serious misconduct in the Australian Taxation Office, lost his appeal to be protected under whistleblower laws. Pip Hinman reports.
It has been galling to see that PwC executives' sharing of confidential information — notably tax policies — will not lead to them spending time in a prison cell. Binoy Kampark argues ATO whistle blower Richard Boyle's treatment could hardly be more different.
The toxic chemical blaze which started in a West Footscray factory, in Melbourne's west, on August 30, and took firefighters 17 hours to bring under control, has provoked such widespread anger that the state government has been forced to intervene.
Their accountants and lawyers have done their annual magic. They have massaged the numbers, whisked away a gazillion or more dollars to the Cayman Islands, or some other tax haven and — oh, what a miracle — they have managed to reduce their taxable income to zero (or better still, into the offset bliss of notional “losses”).
And all this while they sit by the pool, sipping only-the-best champers.
What a life — for some.
Major corporations and multinational companies are dodging up to $3.5 billion in company tax every year, according to new figures released by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) on October 11. After audit checks by the ATO, this figure could be reduced to $2.5 billion.
In another example of wage theft, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) has revealed that employers have failed to pay superannuation for their staff by an average of $2.81 billion every year between 2009 and 2015: a total of $17 billion.
The worst offenders were small and medium businesses in the construction, retail, food and accommodation sectors.
The ATO has been investigating "the superannuation guarantee gap" — the difference between the 9.5% superannuation guarantee payment required by law and the contributions employers actually make.
US multinational energy corporation Chevron faces an increased tax bill of $340 million after losing an appeal against the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), over a landmark profit-shifting case.
The full Federal Court on April 21 unanimously upheld a previous decision that Chevron engaged in illegitimate transfer pricing by paying a higher rate of interest on a loan from its subsidiary to shift profits from Australia to the US.
Company profits have skyrocketed, while real wages have fallen. This is the harsh reality of the class war being pursued by Australia’s big-business rulers, as underlined by the latest Bureau of Statistics figures released on February 27.
In the last three months of last year, profits surged by a massive 20%, while wages fell by 0.5%. Over 2016, profits were up 26%, while wages grew by a mere 1%, less than the inflation rate of 1.5% — effectively a wage cut.