Reviewing Corporate Tax

A selection of references to the BCA position on corporate tax, including the BCA’s call for a permanent watch on corporate tax arrangements in Australia.

‘The Business Council of Australia wants the federal government to take a big-picture approach to tax reform, calling initially for a Productivity Commission review to expose inefficiencies and what it describes as a considerable overlap of federal and state taxes. “We really want it to be seen as part of holistic reform,” BCA tax counsel Allesandra Fabro says. “The reason at this stage we have singled out any particular taxes is because we think singling different taxes out in the absence of having some comprehensive data on the table is problematic.”’

 From ‘A Duty to Pay’ by Kate Burgess, Business Review Weekly, 6 March 2008.

‘The business community is rightfully wary of sniping away at individual problem taxes instead of doing the job of rebuilding the whole system. The Business Council of Australia suggests that this could be a job for the Productivity Commission, a longstanding champion of micro-reform that is in need of more solid roles to play.’

From editorial titled ‘Business Tax Blues’, Business Review Weekly, 6 March 2008.

‘The survey of members of the Business Council of Australia and the Corporate Tax Association calls for reform of the “complex and inefficient” tax system, which includes 21 federal and 34 state taxes on business, of which 50 contribute just 10 per cent of tax collections.’

From article titled ‘Reform Complex and Inefficient System’ by Caitlin O’Toole, The Australian Financial Review, 6 March 2008.

‘The budget submission from the Business Council found that corporate tax revenue had grown from $27 billion in 2000 to a projected $65 billion in the current financial year. The proportion of tax revenue, the lobby group said, was up from 17.4 per cent to 24.4 per cent, “making it one of the fastest-growing sources of revenue for the government”, the BCA submission said. “Much of this increase has helped fund tax cuts for wage earners, new and broadened social and community programs and some new infrastructure initiatives announced in recent budgets. The BCA considers that the implications of the rising reliance on corporate taxes in terms of ongoing tax competitiveness, the implications for private investment and the sustainability of this reliance have not been adequately addressed by government.”’

Excerpted from an article titled ‘Corporate Tax Rate Hurting Local Firms’ by Scott Murdoch, The Australian, 6 March 2008.