Federal Election 2019: GetUp finances under scrutiny

It accuses others of minimising tax, now left-wing pressure group GetUp is facing questions over its own finances.

Exclusive: It accuses others of minimising tax, now left-wing pressure group GetUp is facing questions over its own finances.

A News Corp Australia investigation reveals queries have been raised over why the activist organisation did not pay tax on its 2018 profits, as well as its deferral of income and treatment of donations as “non-assessable”.

In the midst of its campaign to oust the Coalition, GetUp today dismissed the concerns and went on the attack, forcing a retraction from the Deakin University academics who freely gave an opinion on the accounts for News Corp Australia.

In an email sent at 7pm on Wednesday, a Deakin accounting department academic told News Corp Australia: “There is a prima facie case for GetUp to provide a more detailed explanation and rationale for deferring income and for classifying some of their donations as non-assessable income.

“Indeed, GetUp also admits in its 2018 financial report under notes to the financial statements that it … deferred income.”

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GetUp is facing questions over why it did not pay tax on its 2018 profits.

The academic sent the email after he and a colleague had scrutinised several years of GetUp financial statements.

The academic continued: “GetUp is not a charity but is a private not-for-profit organisation, which suggests it receives no tax concessions from the Australian Taxation Office and thus any income that GetUp receives via donations should be treated as taxable income.”

At 8am today News Corp Australia provided the Deakin academics’ full opinion to GetUp.

At 11.30am the academic said GetUp’s lawyers had contacted the university’s legal department.

At midday, he sent an email saying: “Based on commentary provided by the University’s solicitor, my colleague and I retract … comments relating to GetUp’s financial affairs.

“We do this after giving due consideration to our positions as individual academics providing commentary to the media.”

The head of HLB Mann Judd’s not-for-profit division, audit partner Darryl Swindells, told News he could not understand why GetUp did not have to pay tax on its latest profit of $153,000.

Protesters from GetUp during a rally outside the Boothby candidates debate in Adelaide. Picture: AAP

“The 2018 accounts note that there is no income tax expense, for the reason that there is ‘non-assessable operations’,” Mr Swindells said.

“I do not know what these non-assessable operations are. The income of the company for the year included donations, referral income, sublease income, interest income and sponsorships and other income, which all would generally be assessable.”

Mr Swindells added: “Until I had information from GetUp as to why this had been treated as non-assessable, I could not say that the treatment was incorrect.”

Meanwhile, a new report by Sydney-based public policy analyst James Falk goes further, claiming GetUp deferred revenue to reduce its tax by $500,000.

Mr Falk — who has a Masters of Finance — worked with an accountant to prepare his report. He is a former Liberal candidate but is no longer in the party.

In his report, Mr Falk noted GetUp had castigated businesses such as Qantas “on the basis of accepted and legal tax principles such as using and carrying forward tax losses” and that it had chided major companies based on the amount of tax paid as a percentage of gross revenue.

A new report by Sydney-based public policy analyst James Falk claims GetUp deferred revenue to reduce its tax by $500,000.

“This was, and is, a misrepresentation of appropriate corporate behaviour — company tax is only payable on taxable profit,” he wrote.

A GetUp spokeswoman said Mr Falk’s report was “error ridden” and that the organisation had met all of its tax obligations.

She said the Deakin academics were “mistaken” and that their “comments show a fundamental misunderstanding of our corporate status as a public not-for-profit”.

“GetUp pays income tax in line with our status as a non-profit under Australian tax law,” she said.

“The ATO states that donations to non-profits are not ordinary income, and are non-assessable. This has been confirmed in relation to GetUp by leading independent assurance, tax and advisory firm, Grant Thornton.”

An ATO spokeswoman said it could not comment on an individual company.

She said the information GetUp had referred to came from the ATO website.

Originally published as Federal Election 2019: GetUp finances under scrutiny