2016-11-28
Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson says it is astonishing that in a week the Senate is squabbling over just tens of millions in revenue from backpackers, that the ANAO have just released a bombshell report (LINK HERE) saying that oil and gas companies may have wrongly claimed billions in tax deductions.
Senator Whish-Wilson said, “The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull went on radio on Friday morning saying that of course the ATO would chase down and audit every backpacker in the country, because if they didn’t, then nobody would pay tax. Yet, today, via the Australian National Audit Office we find that oil and gas companies maybe have been wrongly claimed tax deductions up to $5 billion in value.
“The ANAO has found that the royalty formula hasn’t been reviewed in 17 years and that a number of the deductions worth billions claimed by companies aren’t even on the allowable schedule under the Act.
“This government has gotten everything arse-about. They have been trying to penny pinch from backpackers and some of the lowest-paid workers in the country, and yet they have been blind to potentially multi-billion dollar rorts from massive multinational corporations.
“Make no mistake, the Greens are going to put the entire oil and gas royalty system under the microscope,” he concluded.
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