In a report from The Australian Financial Review, it turns out that the company that is the Australian Tax Office’s only ‘high-risk’ concern for tax evasion isn’t Apple or Google, or any of those major companies that have been in the media recently for all those crazy ‘we sent all our millions to a bank account in the Phillipines‘ tax evasion stories.
Although the company remains unnamed by the ATO themselves, AFR has confirmed with outside sources that the only company in the high-risk ‘Q1’ section, is Rupert Murdoch‘s NewsCorp Australia.
A spokesperson for Newscorp said in a statement on Friday, “We have answered extensive questions on our tax matters at the Senate Inquiry [into corporate tax avoidance] in an open and transparent way and have nothing further to add.”
Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan spoke about the only company to remain in Q1, saying:
“It is about the history of their aggressive behaviour in tax over a period of time. Importantly, it is about transparency and willingness to be open with us. Historically, this particular taxpayer has made it quite clear that they have not had an interest in being open with us and discussing any of their affairs with us prior to their doing transactions.”
Deputy Commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn explained a recent behavioural change, where large companies started coming to to the ATO before tax reviews or refunds, rather than doing things incorrectly and leaving the ATO to figure out their mistakes. Currently around 68 companies are engaging in this process with the Tax Office, but Newscorp has no interest whatsoever in asking for advice proactively.
“They have said, ‘We are not required to talk to you before we file a tax return,’ and they are right,” Deputy Commissioner Michael Konza said.“We say, ‘If you don’t want to co-operate in that manner, then you can expect that we’re going to have to do audits and reviews on you all the time, because we won’t have any other way of seeing things’,” Mr Konza said.
Mr Hirschhorn confirmed that the company was under intensive review by the Tax Office.
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