Drumroll … trumpets, red carpet: we are rolling out Australia’s Top 40 Tax Dodgers for 2021. Michael West unveils the villains and the heroes of the tax scene, including new gongs this year for Lifetime Achievement Award and UnAustralian of the Year.
Latest Finance & Tax Stories
The Usual Suspects: oil and gas majors star in Australian tax heist
Angus Taylor’s rescue package for the oil industry is a testament to governments getting gamed by large corporations. The latest Tax Office transparency data shows oil and gas juggernauts are Australia’s biggest tax cheats, again, yet now they are crying for public subsidies – and getting them – to prop up their oil refineries. Michael West reports on the good and the bad in multinational tax dodging land.
Confession time for Lendlease as Tax Office bears down on humungous tax rort
Nine Entertainment chief Hugh Marks dumped for having sex, Christine Holgate chopped at Australia Post over $20,000 in bonuses. Meanwhile, the top brass at Lendlease, having presided over a $500 million tax scam, nonchalantly say they are “continuing to engage with the ATO and await the finalisation of its draft determination”. Michael West reports.
Responsible Lending? Coalition’s left hand not sure what its right hand is doing
The government is pushing hard to get rid of responsible lending obligations, but it doesn’t seem to realise that removing these obligations will pull the rug out from one of its signature pieces of legislation that Scott Morrison championed when he was treasurer – mandatory comprehensive credit reporting. Elizabeth Minter reports.
Trump’s America: poor targeted, red carpet for wealthiest tax avoiders
While Trump’s tax affairs have been widely reported, statistics show that US authorities are going after the poorest families. Just seven of the 23,400 households earning on average $30 million were audited (0.03%). Yet more than a third of households earning an average $12,600 were audited – nine times the rate for the richest. David Cay Johnston reports.
Zombie Cash-Splash: Treasurer ramps up orgy of corporate hand-outs
“Australians know there is no money tree,” said Treasurer Josh Frydenberg at the apogee of the coronavirus in May. But there is. The Reserve Bank is creating money out of thin air. It’s called QE. Michael West reports on the latest fruits to fall from Josh’s fertile money tree, particularly free cash from a hitherto hidden measure in the Budget.
The Trump Tax Returns: Donald deducts $US70,000 for hair-styling
“A serious tax cheat” is how his biographer David Cay Johnston describes Donald Trump. Johnston reports on the New York Times investigation into the finances of the US president, revealing Trump has previously lost two income tax fraud trials.
Tax shysters PayPal investigated by AUSTRAC for money-laundering, counter-terror financing
Hard on the heels of its Westpac sting, Austrac is close to prosecuting Paypal for offences under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing laws. Michael West reports.
Rich Thinking: Canberra Bubble wage delusions spawn a bizarre plan to flatten taxes
Forget the “average” wage, half of working Australians earn less than $57,000 a year. Rich think they are poor, poor rich. Elizabeth Minter reports on the government’s strange plan to flatten taxes so everybody who earns between $45,000 and $200,000 pays the same rate.
Dirty money leaks shine a spotlight on kleptocrats devouring our economy
An unprecedented leak of thousands of files from the US government’s most confidential financial intelligence database has shone a spotlight on the world’s $2 trillion-a-year dirty money habit. As Nathan Lynch reveals, this story goes much deeper than the glib “bad bankers” narrative being trotted out by the world’s media.
Advance Australia Unfair: tax cuts to favour men over women, old over young, rich over poor
Women and young people have borne the brunt of the Covid Crisis. They are set to lose again when the Government hands down its $158 billion tax cuts package. Elizabeth Minter reports on the unfairness of the government’s plan for economic recovery.
Ugly numbers of Trump’s tax cuts serve a warning for Scott Morrison
Radical Republicans rammed the Trump tax law through Congress without a single hearing or Democratic vote. The numbers are in: the rich made out like bandits and the rest got three-fifths of bugger all, writes David Cay Johnston.
Sour grapes: China in muddle over claims Australian producers are dumping wine
There’s little evidence that Australian wine makers are dumping their product, so it appears China’s latest threat to slap tariffs on exporters has more to do with diplomatic relations, writes Marcus Reubenstein.
Taxes are not a burden: they provide many of the good things in life
Coalition spending over the past six years has been nearly half that of the past 40 years and is forecast to drop further. With many services already cut to the bone, even the Parliamentary Budget Office has warned such ‘spending restraint’ is likely to be unsustainable. In a post-pandemic world, bringing forward tax cuts that only benefit high earners would be irresponsible, writes Michael Keating.
Snouts in the superannuation trough: turbo-charging Paul Keating’s legacy
Three million Australians have applied for early release of super, with $30 billion already paid out and more than 500,000 members emptying their accounts. Harry Chemay investigates the nation’s retirement system, which costs 10 times more to run than the Tax Office and is a key way for the highly paid to accelerate their wealth.
Land Banking: red tape and a dearth of housing supply are a myth
Developers limit construction in all sorts of ways to maximise profits – from building in stages to reducing the number of properties for sale to letting planning approvals lapse and then reapplying at a higher density. We need to stop buying into the myth that red tape causes high house prices.
Jeffrey Knapp on John Lennon and the Big 4: give public interest a chance
KPMG and the other Big Four audit firms are at a crossroads. Their work with multinational clients to skirt ethical accounting rules and regulations has been on show time and time again. They need to decide what they really are: a salesforce or – what they profess to be – an accounting profession.
Are Thatcherism and Reaganomics your best answers, Josh?
Thatcherism and Reaganomics led to huge transfers of income and wealth from the poor to the rich. Increasing the tax rates on the highest earners would instead send a powerful message that we really are all in this together.
Australia’s super funds pay up to 33% less tax than advertised
The tax paid by superannuation funds on their earnings is often less than 10%, much lower than the headline rate of 15%, according to research by the University of Technology Sydney. And in an industry worth $2.7 trillion, this means a huge difference in the tax take for government. Callum Foote reports.
Mathias Cormann leaves a legacy of losses as Finance Minister
On nearly every economic indicator of wellbeing, Australians have gone backwards in the past six years of the Coalition government. Yet it, and particularly the Finance Minister, is lauded at every turn. Alan Austin takes a closer look at the figures.
Do the grandchildren really pay the debt? The problem with Scott Morrison’s plan for recovery, and MMT
The Government’s plan for economic recovery is wrong. Michael West investigates Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and the false assumption that the national Budget is like the household budget, or a business. They are already creating new money while denying the proposition that creating new money will expand the economy; preferring to punish casual workers and Arts students, and pursue austerity instead.
Westpac’s pursuit of profit “placed children directly at risk of harm”
In 2018, when Westpac executives skimped on embedding proper controls to track financial crimes, they earned significant bonuses after reporting an operating profit of A$8 billion but they put children at risk of sexual abuse. The bank is now facing a $1 billion penalty, but only $A20 million has been clawed back from those 38 individuals. Nathan Lynch reports.
HomeBuilder: a sneaky plan for the Coalition’s franking credits crew to collar the pension?
Is the Morrison Government’s HomeBuilder scheme another case of pork-barrelling which targets the Liberal base? Financial adviser Harry Chemay says it will benefit some first-home buyers and the building lobby – but can also be accessed by wealthy self-funded retirees to increase the value in their home and access the pension.
Minerals Council demands “reform” while its members pay little or no tax
Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, various vested interests have been lobbying for the reforms they’d like governments to deliver under the guise of economic stimulus. The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) is no exception. Last week, the MCA published a list of “immediate reform priorities to accelerate economic recovery”. ACCR’s Dan Gocher reports.
Lendlease and Blue Care join throng of large corporations cheating JobKeeper
Why is Lendlease claiming JobKeeper? What is Queensland’s largest private sector employer, Blue Care, doing claiming JobKeeper when its revenues from government have actually been rising? Michael West investigates the latest mega-rort by the Big End of Town.
Revolving Doors: want a high-paid job at the bank? Become a politician
Australia’s banking sector is a haven for government ministers, prime ministers, state premiers and a slew of top bureaucrats. Our Revolving Doors investigation into this most mollycoddled of industries begins today. We expose, not those who have “taken the money and run”, but those who have run for the money.
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