Cracking down on multinational tax avoidance requires more than proposed law: Bandt

2015-10-19

Greens treasury spokesperson Adam Bandt MP today said the Greens will support the government’s Tax Laws Amendment (Combating Multinational Tax Avoidance) Bill 2015, but unless the government goes further, the problem of multinational tax avoidance will continue. Mr Bandt spoke on the bill today in the House of Representatives.

“If we want to have good schools and good hospitals in this country and a safety net that gives people a good income to retire on, then government needs to raise the revenue for it, which means tougher action than this bill proposes,” Mr Bandt said.

“This government has been dragged kicking and screaming to do something about multinational tax avoidance.”

“However, it’s time to ‘name and shame’ those multinational companies that don’t pay their fair share of tax.”

“To date, we have relied largely on journalists to expose the depth and breadth of aggressive tax minimisation by multinationals in this country.”

“Tax laws must be changed so that the public knows how much tax these companies pay in Australia.”

“Transparency will drive behaviour change.”

Media contact: Adam Pulford, 0429 109 054