The ACTU has addressed the Senate Corporate Tax Avoidance Inquiry and called for significant changes to tax law to stop the unprecedented tax avoidance being undertaken by Exxon.
Exxon’s entire business is structured to enable massive tax avoidance, which has cost at least $1.4 billion according to some estimates.
Exxon has paid no corporate tax for several years, despite making hundreds of millions of dollars in profit every year off Australian natural resources.
Quotes attributable to ACTU National Campaign Coordinator Lance McCallum:
“In the 2015/16 financial year, Australian working people went without $13.4 billion dollars’ worth of teachers and school infrastructure, hospital beds, nurses and doctors, road building and other vital services because big companies don’t pay their fair share of tax.
“Companies which avoid paying their full share of tax in Australia are taking money away from all working people in this country and using our infrastructure, our labour, our natural resources, to send profits overseas.
“It’s a glaring example of how big businesses have too much power, and get to play by an entirely separate set of rules to ordinary people.
“We need to change the rules so that companies like Exxon are held to account and has to pay its fair share.”
ENDS