Joe Hockey’s constituents not buying the Treasurer’s tough on tax avoidance talk
Treasurer Joe Hockey has made tax avoidance by the world’s largest companies one of the cornerstone issues for discussion by the world’s most powerful leaders at the G20 summit in Brisbane this week – but it appears he still has some way to go to convince those closer to home that the government is serious about extracting a fair tax contribution from companies operating in Australia.
Three-quarters of people in Mr Hockey’s own electorate believe the Coalition has not done enough to tackle corporate tax avoidance, a poll has found.
A ReachTel poll of 789 constituents of the seat of North Sydney, found a majority of Liberal voters – 59 per cent – responded no to the question: “Do you think the government is doing enough to stop corporate tax avoidance”.
Based on 2013 election results, only one in five people vote for Labor in North Sydney. But of those, 72 per cent were dissatisfied with the government’s performance on company tax.
The ReachTel poll was commissioned by the union United Voice.
McMahon, the western Sydney electorate of shadow treasurer Chris Bowen, was also polled. In his electorate, 63 per cent said corporate tax avoidance had not been dealt with effectively by the government.
The scale of Mr Hockey’s task in securing a fair tax take from multinationals emerged last week in a cache of documents that show how hundreds of companies channel profits through Luxembourg to artificially lower their tax bill in countries like Australia.
IKEA, for example, reported just $103 million in profits made in Australia between 2002 and 2013 but, based on the documents, its real Australian profits were closer to $1 billion during that period.
On Monday, a Coalition of well-known poverty campaigners, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and World Vision Australia chief executive Tim Costello issued a call for tax evasion to be addressed once and for all.
The group, which includes Transparency International Australia, demanded that secret company ownership be banned and the identities of who benefits from a business be made public by a mandated registry. They also called for tax contribution to be published by companies on a country by country basis.
“Lest we forget the primary victims of organised crime, corruption and tax evasion or avoidance are the poorest citizens of the world,” the group said in an open letter.
Mr Hockey said: “Wherever companies engage in extraordinary activity in order to avoid tax, we will go after them.”
A report by the Tax Justice Network, revealed by Fairfax Media in September, found almost a third of Australia’s largest companies are paying less than 10¢ in the dollar in corporate tax.
The report led to the establishment of an upcoming Senate inquiry into corporate tax dodging in Australia.
