The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has warned that the nation's attempts at imposing a "Google Tax" are already being circumvented, and suggested big accountancy firms have found a way around efforts to stymie multinational tax avoidance.
Australia's Google Tax, formally known as the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law (MAAL), is modelled on the UK's and imposes penalties on companies that move money offshore for the sole purpose of legally-but-cynically avoiding tax.
[...] Indeed the Office says it's just found a new [technique] it considers "artificial and contrived," as it "involves interposing an entity described as a partnership between the foreign entity originally making supplies to Australian customers, and the Australian customers."
"The partnership has one resident corporate partner with a minority interest in the partnership, therefore purporting to characterise the partnership as an 'Australian entity' for the purposes of the MAAL." But nothing changes in the business' actual operations, and the ATO says: "The arrangements have little, if any, commercial basis."
(Score: 1) by shipofgold on Sunday September 18 2016, @07:03AM
Everybody would become a corporation. It doesn't take much to setup a corporation in most States and you would see a lot of income move into these corporations which would pay mortgages, car loans, etc. from which a shareholder would benefit tax free.
What needs to happen is the countries of the world need to move toward a common tax structure so that the incentive of playing these types of accounting games is removed.