The Tax Avoidance Taskforce (taskforce) continued to meet and exceed commitments to Government. The May 2024 Budget announcement acknowledged the ongoing success of the taskforce by further extending it to 30 June 2028 with an additional $1.2 billion in funding.
With taskforce intervention, large businesses and multinationals are committing to long term behavioural change. This means taxpayers are shifting their tax position with increasing revenue being taxable in Australia, giving us greater assurance of the integrity of the tax system.
Throughout the year, the taskforce reached further into populations such as the medium and emerging public companies and private groups populations. The taskforce also developed new programs to engage with taxpayers early and address new and emerging risks.
Our engagements with large public groups, multinationals and privately owned and wealthy groups have generated total revenue effects of around $32.4 billion since July 2016, with taskforce funding helping to generate around $20.8 billion as at 30 June 2024. This includes results from collections from audit actions and our preventative actions and sustained compliance.
In 2023–24, our compliance efforts in this population secured $5.7 billion in additional tax revenue from these groups.
Key highlights for 2023–24
- We succeeded in the Full Federal Court decision of Singapore Telecom Australia Investments Pty Ltd (SingTel) v Commissioner of Taxation [2021] FCA 1597. This decision confirmed that SingTel claimed a transfer pricing benefit for deductions based on interest paid on loans between 2 of its subsidiaries regarding its acquisition of Optus in 2002.
- We welcomed an announcement from SGSP (Australia) Assets Pty Ltd (trading as Jemena) to the Singapore Exchange regarding our settlement resolving a dispute in relation to $800 million convertible instruments entered in 2015.
- The taskforce was instrumental in moving several large oil and gas companies into a tax payable position. Oil and gas companies contributed tax revenue of $4.4 billion which was secured from public and multinational businesses for the 2022–23 financial year. Some oil and gas companies are now among the biggest taxpayers in Australia.
- The Treasury Laws Amendment (Making Multinationals Pay Their Fair Share – Integrity and Transparency) Act 2024, containing the thin capitalisation amendments, received royal assent in April 2024. The taskforce will support the implementation of this legislation.
- We succeeded in Merchant v Commissioner of Taxation [2024]. The court ruled that there was an additional $40 million in tax owed in relation to dividend stripping in 2015.
Media releases
See our recent media releases:
- ATO lodges application in Federal Court against former EY tax partner
- ATO secures additional $6.4 billion from large corporates
- ATO settles dispute over Singapore hub
- Report reveals record tax paid by large corporates
- ATO successful in SingTel case
- ATO welcomes SGSP (Australia) Assets Pty Ltd (Jemena) settlement
- Advisers setting the standard for integrity