Tax Justice: progress in Australia

We just received an email from Tax Justice Network Australia, which we paste below, with associated links added:

"Yesterday the Tax Laws Amendment (Cross-Border Transfer Pricing) Bill passed through the Senate, which offers some minor strengthening in tackling transfer mispricing by multinational companies. [Link here.]

Secondly, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties released a report recommending that Australia ratify the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, which is likely to increase Australia's participation in automatic information exchange of tax related information if the government follows through on the recommendation.

Finally, the Illegal Logging Prohibition Bill passed the House of Representatives yesterday (with some of us spending much time last week frantically lobbying to make sure the government had the numbers to get the Bill through). This will help combat the importation of illegally logged timber, much of which involves tax evasion costing governments (particularly in developing countries) between $10 billion and $15 billion a year. The Bill is expected to make it through the Senate when the Government brings it on, as it has the support of the Greens. We are still targeting the Coalition with a postcard campaign seeking to get them to support the Bill (as it was their policy in the lead up to the last election).

We (TJN-Australia) did submissions supporting the first two of these actions and thanks to all of those that contributed to both submissions. Thanks also to those who helped with the campaigning on the Illegal Logging Prohibition Bill."

Many thanks to our colleagues for their vigorous actions.