Greens to lead crackdown with ‘tycoon tax’

Greens leader Adam Bandt will push Labor to help raise $391bn in tax raids on billionaires and large firms over a decade.

Greens leader Adam Bandt. Picture: Liam Kidston

Greens leader Adam Bandt will push Labor to help raise $391bn in tax raids on billionaires and large firms over a decade, heaping pressure on Anthony Albanese to ­release details of his crackdown on multinational companies.

Mr Bandt will release the Greens tax avoidance framework and new modelling by the Parliamentary Budget Office on Saturday, moving ahead of Mr Albanese and opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers, who are close to finalising Labor’s crackdown on multinational companies.

Speaking at the Greens national conference, Mr Bandt will back a global minimum corporate tax rate of 25 per cent for multinationals and call for a stop to the “artificial shifting of debt to Australia to increase tax deductions”.

Under the Greens plan, multinational companies would need to stop tax deductions for royalties paid to other arms of the same company and publicly provide ­details of beneficial owners to “see who really owns what”.

The left-wing party also wants basic information published on tax paid by companies earning more than $50m and for the Australian Taxation Office to reveal details of tax dispute settlements with multinational firms.

Mr Bandt said if the Greens held the balance of power after next year’s election, he would ­demand “big corporations and billionaires pay for their fair share of tax”.

“In balance of power, we will push to close the loopholes that allow money shifting offshore, by forcing companies to pay based on their global debt-to-equity ratio. We will push to increase transparency, by forcing companies to publish what they pay, and ban ­secret settlements with the ATO,” Mr Bandt will say in his speech.

“And we will improve monitoring and enforcement, by establishing a public register of beneficial owners. We’re being robbed and we need to get this cash back. We must close the loopholes and stop the cash train departing our country.”

PBO analysis of the Greens five-point tax crackdown suggests about $4.5bn could be clawed back under the new rules. When added to the Greens existing tax measures targeting “billionaires, tycoons and super-profits”, more than $391bn in revenue would be raised over the decade.

Mr Bandt – who targets several major companies in his speech including ExxonMobil Australia and Apple – will say the Greens support a minimum 25 per cent global tax rate for multinational companies, exceeding the 15 per cent endorsed by the G20 last month.

“Right now, one in three big corporations don’t pay any tax. The Greens believe that big corporations making big profits should pay tax. In balance of power, the Greens will push to make big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax,” he will say.

“There will be a billionaires’ tax on billionaires’ obscene wealth, which grew faster during the pandemic than the wealth of billionaires in any other country. We will push for a ‘tycoons tax’ on the super-profits made by big corporations.”

The Greens will announce ­additional measures targeting “fossil fuel handouts” and oil and gas companies before the election.

Dr Chalmers, who is working on Labor’s package targeting multinational tax evasion and tax havens, last month said he wanted to “make sure multinationals pay their fair share of tax where they make their money”. He said while some countries would like to set a higher international rate than the 15 per cent minimum for multinationals, he supported any move that backed a fairer global tax ­system.

“We’ll have more to say between now and the next election, whether it’s about tax havens or multinational tax evasion. When it comes to tax havens, we do want to see more transparency. We’ve had policies in this area in the past. We are working on updating our policies,” Dr Chalmers said.