The AFR is reporting that:
A Rio Tinto executive is working with Treasury to determine Australia’s response to international profit shifting at the same time the mining giant is in dispute with the Tax Office over its aggressive tax planning in Singapore.
Michael Potajko, a senior executive in Rio Tinto’s tax arm, has been working for Treasury on secondment since 2013, at Rio’s expense.
Mr Potajko’s former title was Specialist, Tax Risk Management, for the Asia Pacific region for Rio Tinto, a role which is likely to have involved working on Rio’s Singapore marketing hub structure.
Which is the very area that the ATO is currently investigating RIO for tax minimisation.
Finally, from Wikipedia:
Banana republic is a political science term for a politically unstable country, whose economy is largely dependent on exporting a limited-resource product, e.g.bananas. It typically has stratifiedsocial classes, including a large, impoverished working class and a ruling plutocracy of business, political, and military elites. This politico-economic oligarchy controls the primary-sector productions to exploit the country’s economy.
Go ‘Straya!
