Companies such as Apple and Google could soon have their accounts put under the microscope in Australia as part of a crackdown on corporate tax avoidance, according to CNET (http://tinyurl.com/pe65u9y).
The upper house of the Australian parliament voted to refer the matter to the Parliament’s Economics References Committee for inquiry, in order to address “tax avoidance and aggressive minimisation by corporations registered in Australia and multinational corporations operating in Australia.” The Committee is due to report back in June 2015.
The issue was raised by Senator Christine Milne following revelations in a report that, of Australia’s largest 200 companies, 14 percent have an effective tax rate of 0%. In addition, the report found that a further 29% of these companies have an effective tax rate of 10%, significantly less than the Australian company tax rate of 30%.