Malcolm Turnbull accused of ‘tax dodging’ by Labor senator

LABOR senator uses the protection of parliamentary privilege to accuse our richest-ever PM of keeping his money in a Cayman Islands house.

Turnbull accused of being a ‘tax dodger’

LABOR today attacked Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s offshore investments and questioned whether he had “appropriate” management of personal finances.

The attack was familiar to Mr Turnbull, considered the richest member of Parliament, and there was no suggestion he was doing anything illegal.

Mr Turnbull replied that he paid Australian tax on all his income.

The accusations were made in the Senate by Labor’s Sam Dastyari who said Mr Turnbull was taking advantage of tax minimisation through a Cayman Islands fund.

“All legal and disclosed, but is any of it appropriate?” Senator Dastyari asked.

“There is one reason I know why people invest in the Cayman Islands and that’s so they don’t have to play by the same rules as the rest of us.

“This isn’t fair and it’s not right.”

He said voters should remember this “every time the Liberals vote against tax transparency”.

Mr Turnbull said in a statement all his investments complied with the Ministerial Code of Conduct.

“In order to avoid conflicts of interest almost all of my financial investments are in overseas managed funds which means that I have no say in which companies they invest in,” said the Prime Minister.

“Thousands of managed funds with investors outside of the USA are registered in the Cayman Islands with the result that the income of the fund is taxed in the hands of the investors in their own home jurisdictions.

“So all of my income from my investments including funds registered in the Cayman Islands is taxed in Australia.”

All Mr Turnbull’s investments, and those of wife Lucy, have been listed in his member’s declaration of interests.

Senator Dastyari told the Senate about a Cayman Islands house, “an impressive five-story homestead, nestled among the palm trees, with the waves lapping on the beach”.

“In this house nearly 19,000 — that’s right, 19,000 — corporations claimed to be headquartered,” he said.

He said it was “one of the pre-eminent addresses in the world for tax minimisation”.

“So you have to ask, who invests in the companies that claim to be headquartered in this house. Well friends, among them is our Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull,” the Senate was told.

In January Mr Turnbull declared his investment in Zebedee Growth Funds which uses the Caymans as its base. Another, similarly registered fund was the Bower Opportunity Fund and three others — “all legal and disclosed, but is any of it appropriate?” said Senator Dastyari.

He asked whether Mr Turnbull “played by the same rules as the rest of us”.

“It isn’t fair, and it’s not right,” he said.

“For two years I’ve asked: Why is it that this Senate can’t pass legislation to improve tax transparency? Why is it that we can’t crack down on multinational profit shifting?

“Why is it we have seen Coalition senators refuse to ask companies earning over $100 million to declare how much these companies pay in tax?”

Sam Dastyari has previously probed tax avoidance by major companies in a Senate committee. (AAP Image/Paul Miller)

Originally published as Malcolm Turnbull accused of ‘tax dodging’ by Labor senator