Stop Corporate Tax Dodging

While everyday Australians pay their fair share, massive corporations are exploiting legal loopholes to dodge billions in tax. This lost tax revenue could be used to fund essential services such as healthcare workers, teachers, and aged care.

There are lots of ways corporations work to legally reduce their tax bill to zero or close to zero. But three of the biggest loopholes corporations currently exploit are:

1. IP royalty schemes: McDonald's pays itself $602 million in inflated "royalty fees" to use its own brand, shifting profits to a UK shell company to avoid Australian tax. Over a decade, McDonald's avoided an estimated $1 billion – enough to fund 11,000 nurses for a year.



2. Trust structures: Transurban uses "stapled trusts" to split themselves in two: the trust owns the profitable toll-collecting rights, while the company owns all the costs like road repairs. By funneling profits through the trust structure, they avoid paying the 30% corporate tax rate that ordinary Australian companies pay. From 2014 to 2023, Transurban paid nothing to the tax office on $24.7 billion in revenue for a decade. Sydney Airport does the same – zero corporate tax while collecting millions from travelers.



3. Tax adviser guidance: The PwC scandal exposed how tax advisers help corporations dodge tax. While advising the government, PwC's Peter Collins secretly shared confidential information with colleagues who used it to help 14 multinational clients – including Google – avoid new tax laws. The firm earned $2.5 million from the scheme.

If we closed these three loopholes, the additional tax revenue could transform essential services that Australians rely on every day:

Healthcare McDonald's $1 billion in avoided tax over a decade could fund 11,000 nurses for a full year. That's enough nurses to staff entire regional hospital systems or eliminate wait times in emergency departments across the country.

Education Trust abuse costs Australia at least $3.5 billion annually in lost tax revenue. This money could fund 38,000 additional teachers for a full year (based on average teacher salary of ~$92,000). That's enough to dramatically reduce class sizes in every public school across Australia, ensuring every child gets the attention they deserve.

Aged care Tax advisory abuse, exposed by the PwC scandal where advisers helped clients dodge billions, represents a significant revenue leak. Properly regulating tax advisers could recoup hundreds of millions in lost revenue annually. Even conservative estimates suggest this could fund thousands of aged care workers, ensuring our elderly parents and grandparents receive dignified, quality care.

Cost of living support Combined, closing these loopholes could raise over $5 billion annually. This revenue could fund affordable housing initiatives, helping families priced out of the market, investments in public transport infrastructure to reduce commuting costs, or childcare subsidies to ease pressure on working families. Instead, this money is sitting in offshore tax havens or corporate bank accounts while our hospitals are understaffed, our schools are underfunded, and families struggle with the cost of living.

The choice is clear: we can either let corporations continue dodging billions in tax, or we can demand Treasurer Jim Chalmers closes the loopholes and invests that revenue in the services Australians need.