Shameless, out-of-touch and delusional:
“Many Australians believe neither government nor big business are listening to them,” Origin Energy chief executive Frank Calabria told the annual survey of 52 top chief executives compiled by The Australian Financial Review’s Chanticleer columnists.
…Outgoing Commonwealth Bank chief executive, Ian Narev, said business needs to change its message if it is to win trust.
“We need to keep up our efforts to acknowledge and address our shortcomings, but also ensure that we tell with pride the story of what our people do every day,” he said.
…”When the government blames big business for its own political shortcomings it destroys confidence, it damages the economy and it distracts us from the critical issues concerning our country and its place in the world,” APA Group chief executive Mick McCormack said.
But Rio Tinto chief executive JS Jacques defended the Turnbull government.
Business leaders were also broadly supportive of the need for Australia to reduce its tax rate, particularly given similar moves in the United States, where Donald Trump intends to take the corporate rate to 20 per cent.
The truth:
- ORG is currently selling Australian gas into Asia at huge losses which it recoups by gouging Australian households on gas and electricity bills;
- CBA is under investigation for laundering tens of millions of dollars for criminal syndicates and terrorists owing to cavalier risk management (not to mention the RC into other dodgy stuff);
- APA is a monopoly gas pipeline gouger exacerbating all of the problems arising from the east coast gas cartel;
- RIO was central to the rolling of a prime minister so it could write its own tax code.
Australia’s effective corporate tax rate is already one the lowest in the world, far below that of the US, from The Australian:
[Eslake] says a comparison of the headline rates in the US going from 35 per cent to 20 per cent under the Trump plan, which is being used to argue the case for cutting Australia’s corporate rate, is misleading.
A 2012 US Congressional Budget Office study found that at just 10.4 per cent Australia was in the bottom half of G20 economies for effective tax rates, which take into account investment allowances and depreciation rates. The average rate in Australia is 17 per cent…
Mr Eslake, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Tasmania and a former chief economist at both ANZ and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, says the primary beneficiaries of a cut in company tax rates in Australia will be the foreign shareholders of Australian companies and the majority owners of foreign interests.
“There is no guarantee that if they are allowed to keep more of their Australian earnings than they are at the 30 per cent tax rate that they would invest more of it in Australia,” Mr Eslake said.
Spot on. Here’s the US Congressional Budget Office’s analysis via Ian Verrender:
As you can see, Australia’s average and effective corporate tax rate is already competitive.
I mean, sheesh, what’s not to trust?
