Qantas Tops List of Tax Cheats !!!!

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Totally shameful..

Even referring to Revenue as Income.

And totally missing the point that
SYDNEY, 28 August 2014: Qantas today announced an Underlying Loss Before Tax of $646 million and a Statutory Loss After Tax of $2.8 billion for the 12 months ended 30 June 2014
Tax man got nothing
Shareholders got no dividend and a coughped out share price

Qantas will be paying a lot of tax this year.
 
The ironic thing about this is that nine (in all of its previous and current holding/ownership structures) have some of the most interesting arrangements going...
Go figure...
 
#2 the company number used to be called XStrata before it got taken over by Glencore (which has its own entry)

Now thats a company I would expect to regularly appear on such lists.
 
The accumulated prior year tax losses are something like $2bn so they won't be paying cash tax for probably 18 months... Poor journalism.
 
The report stupidly uses the word 'earned' which to many in the community implies 'a profit.'

I agree - appalling "journalism."

A finance journalist should at least understand that if a company receives revenue, it can still make a loss.
 
I'm not a tax accountant and my understanding of corporate tax is almost non-existent.

From what I gather from the criticism of the article here, if a company makes a loss (i.e. its expenses exceeds its revenues) then they don't have to pay tax on their revenues, or indeed any tax at all? Do they get a tax 'credit' if they have losses, and why should they be allowed to do that?

If the journalists got this wrong, then where did their flawed methodology lead them astray? If the ATO prepared the list for them, then how could the ATO make such an egregious mistake, or why didn't the ATO qualify properly what the list meant?

Are there any entries on the list that was published who deserve to be on that list?

Even if the methodology is flawed, is there any viable argument that Qantas or any of the companies on that list should be paying more tax anyway?


For whatever it is worth, Qantas can publish a response but I doubt suing the journalists is a productive idea. In this country, it has almost never been viable, and likely hardly ever will.
 
... if a company makes a loss (i.e. its expenses exceeds its revenues) then they don't have to pay tax on their revenues...
The problem facing the ATO (and other countries' similar agencies) is that multi-national companies can (quite legitimately) manufacture expenses, for the express purpose of reducing their overall tax liability.

For example - a completely fictitious American company (which bares no resemblance to any real world company present or past), which we might call Giggle (let's say it's a mining company) has offices (operated by wholly owned subsidiaries in a complex ownership web) in Australia, Singapore and elsewhere where it does business.

Giggle Australia actually makes a large profit here from its Australian based operations, however it doesn't want to pay tax here - because Australia's company tax rate is 30%!

Giggle US decides that Giggle Singapore should hold all Intellectual Property rights (e.g. the right to use the “Giggle” TM and name) for operations in the Asia-Pacific region... And, it just so happens, that in Singapore - the corporate tax rate is around half that of Australia. So, quite reasonably, Giggle Global would rather pay tax in Singapore than in Australia, because it will make more overall profit that way.

So Giggle Singapore, the rightful owner of all Giggle IP in the region, decides that it will charge Giggle Australia a fee to use its IP. In a completely reasonable manner, it decides that this fee should be around the same amount as Giggle Australia makes in profit (before the fee is applied). So Giggle Singapore manufactures a (completely legal) expense, which Giggle Australia is forced to pay, which in turn effectively sends all Giggle Australia profits to Singapore.

Thus - Giggle Australia now pays no tax in Australia (where it would have paid 30%) but does pay tax on all that profit in Singapore (but only at half the rate which it would have paid in Australia). The Singapore government is very happy that such a low turnover operation as Giggle Singapore makes such a highh profit, and pays so much tax to them! The people of Australia are p!ssed off that Giggle Australia pays nothing back into the economy where it actually made the money in the first place!
 
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Corporate greed is probably a bigger issue for Australia to address than even the environment.

It always seems strange that we call it income tax which is applied to individuals on their income yet companies pay income tax on their earnings or profit.

I wonder why there has been little discussion around introducing a company tax on income, particularly for any company domiciled overseas or is making offshore inter-company payments and would prove extremely difficult for multinationals to avoid.

The threat that multinationals would close up and move offshore rings hollow as they are the first to know they would be readily replaced by a much smaller and significantly more efficient enterprise.
 
Qantas has to get past massive tax losses before they will be paying any company tax in Australia. Those losses included the resizing of their workforce and junking some 747s.
 
The problem facing the ATO (and other countries' similar agencies) is that multi-national companies can (quite legitimately) manufacture expenses, for the express purpose of reducing their overall tax liability.

Another problem is the tax codes were designed for an era we simply don't live in any more. This isn't 1930.

Companies have customers all over the world and have choice in where they set-up shop. To think a global company should pay income tax to one market they service is beyond hilarious, especially when tax policies in that country require a nuclear physics pHD to understand, are overbearing, destroy and discourage innovation and are managed by undertakers who want to cut you off at the legs and suck every last piece of life out of you if they think you they're not getting their fare share.

I love Australia, but the tax system is broken. It's part of the reason high value start-up companies are leaving Australia by the thousands. Wyatt Roy recently stated more than 20,000 Australian Entrepreneurs are living in Silicon Valley. The value of the businesses these 20,000 aussies have created is well into the billions - and that is money Australia will never see a cent of because of ridiculously outdated tax policies. Here's a good article I read recently which highlights the reasons why you should start-up your new business in Australia: http://bit.ly/1PI82Yr

In the Giggle example above, the country needs to realise how much Giggle contributes to the economy through non-income tax ways. Employment, Office space, promotions, materials, events, data centres, payroll tax, accounting, legal, auditing, economic stimulation and brining business to other Australian companies, and all the peoples jobs that support these areas. If anything - there is an argument to the Australian Government paying large companies to be in Australia - not the other way around.
 
There is a lot more to the Atlassian story than that you read in the papers.
You might search what the founders have said about startups,457 visas etc to get a different perspective of the problems in Australia.
 
Disgraceful journalism that is indicative of the left wing brainwashing centres that "journalism faculties" of our universities have become.

If you want companies to pay tax In Australia, then you should turn Australia into a tax haven so the world's best companies flock here in the same way that Singapore attracts them right now, which creates enormous wealth and jobs for Singaporeans because they don't suffer from the Australian tall poppy disease.
 
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