Companies are cheating the tax system in Australia and around the world. Corporations are taxed on the profits they generate. To minimise these profits companies are shifting their profits via IP charges on their balance sheets to other companies associated with them located in tax havens. This accountancy trickery has been going on for years now and is actively taking billions of dollars of tax revenue out of nations like Australia. It is time to change the system to catch these cheats. A percentage of gross revenue should be charged to beat these devious tricks. The companies doing this are Apple, Amazon, News Corp, Pepsi, Uber, Meta, Microsoft, Google (Alphabet) and many more.
Billions Being Syphoned Off To Tax Havens Globally
Companies like Google (Alphabet) are generating around 8 to 10 billion dollars annually in Australia. However, they are reducing that figure by means of profit shifting by some three quarters. Big Tech companies, according to Yanis Varoufakis, only pay around 1% of their revenue in wages, which for most businesses is their largest operating expense. This fiddling of the books to disguise the true nature of their balance sheets is a disgrace. These tax minimising companies must be brought to heal. This American multinational manipulation of the tax system and capitalism, more generally, is one of the reasons why we find ourselves in a deeply inequitable world. If we brought in a flat 10% tax on gross revenue over a billion dollars, we would bring in a $100 million per billion. Change the system to catch these cheats.
You Cannot Trust Politicians
What you see is governments going after the weakest and lowest hanging fruit. In Australia that is personal income tax of workers. Wealthy individuals and companies minimise their tax via employing accountants to devise ways to avoid paying their fair share of tax. Around a third of all companies in Australia pay no corporate tax each year. Is that the system working well for all Australians? I don’t think so. Political leaders spend much of their time in the company of the wealthy and powerful or their lobbyists. They are bought off via the revolving door to a well paid post political career in large numbers. This is especially true of resource ministers at state and federal levels. The apathy and ignorance of Australians allows this corruption to go on. The NACC is a bad joke, as the Robodebt outcomes attest to.
PwC Betrayed The Australian People
We saw the PwC travesty, where this auditing accountancy firm, part of the Big 4 American consultancy cabal, betrayed the Australian federal government by spilling the beans to their corporate clients about mooted changes to the tax system. This was treasonous behaviour but did not cop the kind of penalties expected by the general public. These politicians and elites look after their own, it is a rigged system. They all pay into the political donation slush funds for each major party to buy themselves a get out of jail free card when and if they need it. PwC did reviews of the Robodebt scheme for the Coalition governments during its 6 year tenure.
These large corporations generate billions and billions from governments in Australia each year. At the same time they minimise their tax obligations down to comparatively tiny amounts. The burden of the necessary tax revenue falls upon the humble workers, as they pay the lion’s share of tax downunder.
“If Australia just collected the OECD average in tax, the government would have an extra $130 billion a year to spend on essential services like health and education. the latest data from the Australian Taxation Office showing that 30 per cent of large corporations paid no company tax in 2023-24 – with the gas, coal, salmon and tech industries among the worst offenders.”
https://treasury.gov.au/review/tax-white-paper/at-a-glance
It is time to impose a flat 10% tax on gross revenue over a billion dollars, as we would bring in a $100 million per billion. Change the system to catch these cheats. Stop the corporate rorting of Australia. It is time to tax wealth and assets at reasonable rates, rather than merely income. It is time to plug the holes in the tax system, which have allowed creative accountants to feather the nests of their rich clients. Big tech is probably the worst of these corporate cheats but gas and coal are not far behind.
Paying Much More For Petrol – Thank Trump
“Fuel costs are shooting up downunder because of the United States sending battleships into the Middle East. Petrol prices rising thanks to Trump. American and Israeli interest in attacking Iran is at the root of this. President Donald Trump wants to make America into a petrostate power, despite the winds of change pushing the world to become electrostates. The US cannot compete with China in manufacturing, especially around solar panels and electric vehicles. So, to try and protect US hegemony Trump is content to sacrifice the world via global warming disasters. This is the absolute selfishness of America right before our eyes.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of The AI Heresy; What Price Life?; America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump; and other titles. NOW AVAILABLE AT APPLE BOOKS & GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS. Google Play Books AUDIOBOOK
©GolfDom
The AI Heresy: A Betrayal of Humanity – PDF
Robert Sudha Hamilton has written The AI Heresy: A Betrayal of Humanity – PDF