ABC News: New transparency law aims to deter multinational tax avoidance

Australia’s ABC news reports on the country’s new tax transparency laws, brought in at the end of 2024, after extensive lobbying by CICTAR, Tax Justice- Australia, PSI, union allies and other civil society groups.

ABC notes that the new laws will ‘basically out the multinational corporations that fail to meet their corporate tax obligations by shifting profits to once notorious tax haven jurisdictions.’ and that the legislation was passed in the face of strong corporate opposition:

‘Business lobbies had been fighting the tax transparency laws, and managed to delay their introduction in 2023.’

“Jason Ward, principal analyst at the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research, believes Australia is now leading the world in increasing tax transparency for multinationals.

"This is a huge win globally for multinational tax transparency," Mr Ward told ABC News.

"We hope that other jurisdictions will follow suit or push even farther using the GRI Tax Standard as the template, as Australia has done."