In April 2013 Treasury released a discussion paper entitled Improving the Transparency of Australia’s Business Tax System.

RoLIA’s submission focused on one of the proposals contained in the paper relating to disclosing the identity and tax payable information of certain large and multinational businesses. The following comments were made:

  • Only a small group of taxpayers will be subject to disclosure and that this is discriminatory.
  • The disclosure required will be misleading to the public and will not provide the stated objectives of transparency, to allow the public to better understand the corporate tax system.
  • Amending tax laws to ensure multinationals and large companies pay their fair share of Australian tax is preferable to naming and shaming large companies and multinationals without any sound basis or understanding of the issues.

Laws which are fundamentally inconsistent with the rule of law principles of equality and generality will detract from open and constructive discussion and debate about Australia’s business tax system.

For more details see RoLIA’s submission.