Category: ExxonMobil

ATO warns energy giants over offshore profit hubs

The Australian Taxation Office has its sights on a $30 billion-a-year natural gas export bonanza expected over the next few years, warning oil and gas giants not to follow the lead of the big miners and “inappropriately shift profits” by selling through tax haven Singapore. At the same time, it… – Continue reading

TTIP could block Governments from cracking down on tax avoidance, study warns

Similar trade agreements have been used to facilitate apparent tax avoidance in the past A controversial new trade deal between the EU and the United States could make it more difficult to fight tax avoidance, a new report has warned. TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is expected to… – Continue reading

From Choppergate to Lara Bingle, spending is the taxing issue

It was Kerry Packer who famously told the nation’s politicians “if anybody in this country doesn’t minimise their tax they want their head read” because “as a government I can tell you you’re not spending it that well that we should be paying extra”. The words have gone down in… – Continue reading

Chevron’s Bermuda companies under scrutiny

Bermuda has been in the spotlight in Australia as senators examine the tax affairs of big business. An Australian senate committee set up to look at the tax affairs of major companies heard that oil giants Chevron had 200 companies registered in Bermuda and a further 200 registered in the… – Continue reading

Chevron hits out at ‘tax dodger’ claims at fiery Senate inquiry

Chevron, the US oil giant behind Australia’s biggest liquefied natural gas project, has been hit with claims its tax affairs are a “rort”. We have spent a year trying to find Australia’s biggest tax dodger and we’ve found it. It’s Chevron. Sam Dastyari But the company insists it is the… – Continue reading

Gas sector grew 12-fold in a decade to $60b but tax take flatlines

EXCLUSIVE A federal tax designed to share profits from the oil and gas sector with the Australian public is barely raising a single extra dollar despite the industry’s transformation from a $5 billion concern a decade ago to a $60 billion export powerhouse. With Australia poised to become the world’s… – Continue reading

3 Stocks to Buy if Chris Christie Becomes President

A Chris Christie administration would likely make shareholders at some major U.S. companies very happy. The two-term New Jersey Governor has called for an array of pro-growth, business-friendly reforms as he bids for the Republican nomination. Christie is in favor of lowering corporate taxes so companies earn more profits, raising… – Continue reading

Why Australia’s landmark tax ruling against Chevron is a first battle in a global war on profit shifting

At a very high level, it’s a simple concept: a multinational borrows money from a related company overseas, and then uses the interest bill and the repayment methods to reduce tax exposure in Australia. If the loans – and the interest rates – are big enough, the tax savings can… – Continue reading

Chevron ordered to pay millions in Auz taxes

Chevron lost an appeal in Australian federal court that will see the US supermajor pay more than US$232 million (A$322 million) in back taxes, in addition to fines, after losing a case with the Australian Tax Office (ATO). The Aussie federal court ruled against Chevron, stating the company wrongly shifted… – Continue reading

Australians grill Chevron over Bermuda links

Oil and gas multinational Chevron has come under fire in Australia for using Bermuda for tax avoidance. US-based Chevron, along with Anglo-Dutch firm Shell and the American ExxonMobil, is set to begin production at the massive Gorgon gasfield off the coast of Western Australia. But Chevron has been grilled by… – Continue reading

Chevron tax filings challenged by US tax authorities, report says

Chevron’s tax filings face repeated challenges from the United States and other global tax authorities, according to a new union-backed report that calls on world governments to crack down on the energy giant’s alleged profit-shifting tactics. The world’s largest trade union body, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), has called… – Continue reading

U.S. companies given Export-Import Bank subsidies keep profits offshore, skirt taxes

Budgeting battle But like much of the budgeting in Washington, D.C., it gets complicated. The Congressional Budget Office contends the Ex-Im Bank’s surpluses are the result of the accounting method the bank uses and would disappear — or require a taxpayer subsidy — if the bank used a more appropriate… – Continue reading

Shell pumped $20 billion a year from motorists but paid no company tax

For the third year on the trot, Shell service stations generated billions of dollars and revenue but not a cent in company tax. In fact the owners of the sunny yellow servos reported tax benefits in all three years despite total sales which may be in excess of $60 billion…. – Continue reading

Where will the money flow from Gorgon, our biggest ever mining project?

Energy giants called to explain billions in tax havens To describe Gorgon as another super-sized resources project in Western Australia does not do justice to the scale and scope of the venture. When the taps are turned on later this year and liquefied natural gas begins to flow, Australia will… – Continue reading

Pols keep giving corporate tax dodgers a free pass

Remember that $2.1 trillion of corporate tax profits parked overseas? Well, it’s still there (and growing every day) and politicians are still trying to find a way to lure or compel companies to bring it home. On Monday, President Obama sent a $478 billion transportation bill to Congress funded largely… – Continue reading

The Biggest Tax Scam Ever

I n July, the American pharmaceutical giant AbbVie, maker of the world’s top-selling drug – the arthritis treatment Humira – reached a blockbuster deal to acquire European rival Shire, best known for the attention-deficit medication Adderall. The merger was cheered by Wall Street, not for what the deal will do… – Continue reading