Singapore-based Google company’s tiny tax bill raises questions
THE Singapore-based Google company that trousered $2.4 billion of the tech giant’s $3 billion in Australian revenues last year paid just 0.3 per cent tax on its profits.
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EXCLUSIVE: The Singapore-based Google company that trousered $2.4 billion of the tech giant’s $3 billion in Australian revenues in 2017 paid just 0.3 per cent tax on its profits.
Financial statements obtained by News Corp Australia show Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd had a tax bill of just $US1.4 million on gross profit of $US493 million — an effective tax rate 1/100th of what companies typically pay in Australia.
Called the “Singapore Sling”, it is the start of a strategy experts say sees the $1.14 trillion search titan then shift its cash to Ireland, where foreign income is exempt, and eventually to tax-free Bermuda.
News Corp Australia can reveal the Australian Taxation Office has added Singapore to a list of “specified countries” due to concerns about “base erosion and profit shifting”.
Singapore now accounts for more than a quarter of all Australian companies’ “international related party dealings” — four times the next highest country, Switzerland.
Ireland and Bermuda are also on the specified countries list.
Singapore’s headline corporate tax rate is 17 per cent.
But its Economic Development Board has given Google relief and exemptions that can reduce that to nearly zero.
A source said the ATO was concerned Singapore was giving companies coming into the city-state lower tax rates than domestic businesses.
“This would seem to make them contrary to OECD rules,” the source said.
Meanwhile, the ATO has slapped Google Australia with an amended tax bill for last year, the size of which is unknown. Google is fighting the new assessment but has flagged a “potential outflow of economic benefits”.
Australian experts said more needed to be done to get Google and Facebook to pay their fair share here and to level the playing field for local companies trying to compete with foreign foes such as Amazon.
“Harvey Norman is paying true tax on all their profits because they are a mostly domestic operation, yet they are competing with Amazon, which has a similar structure to Google,” said University of Sydney associate professor Antony Ting.
Associate professor Michael Kobetsky of the University of Melbourne said big tech companies had to be made to “contribute” more because they profited from extracting Australians’ data just as large resources companies profited from extracting Australia’s iron and coal.
“They are taking some value from Australians,” Dr Kobetsky said.
Google Australia’s 2017 financial statements say it paid $2.44 billion to Google Asia Pacific for ads which resold here.
A Google Australia spokesman said the global company’s effective tax rate over the past 10 years was 26 per cent, higher than the average rate in OECD countries.
He said in 2016 Google Australia made a pre-tax profit of $121 million and paid $33 million in corporate income taxes.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Australia wanted “digital companies to be a part of the solution” and that the Government would release a discussion paper in coming weeks.
The Singapore Economic Development Board did not respond.