Corporate Tax
Dear Australian Taxation Office,
I would like to request the following information under the FOI Act.
1. Briefings, talking points and policy documents (draft or otherwise) related to proposed government measures to address multi-national profit shifting since January 2015; and
2. Correspondence written to the ATO or the Minister in 2015 from any corporation in response to the government's announcement to address multi-national profit shifting; and
3. Briefings or other documents that outline the evidence around fears of kidnapping leading to the government's decision to wind back tax disclosure laws for about 700 different companies (as described in a Sydney Morning Herald article of April 10, 2015).
Yours faithfully,
Evelyn Doyle
Dear Evelyn,
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. We will consider your request and respond as soon as possible.
FOI requests are required to be processed within 30 days from the date we receive an application. While we aim to achieve this timeframe, certain requests that are large or involve complex issues may take longer. If this is the case we will contact you to discuss when the material can be made available.
Further, as your request is not for personal information, charges may apply depending on the size and complexity of your case. We will notify you if there are charges and what those charges will be. We will obtain your consent to any additional charges before processing the request.
Kind regards,
Jordan
Jordan Wilson-Otto
Lawyer, General Counsel, ATO Corporate
Australian Taxation Office
P 03 9285 1129 F 03 9285 1702
Dear Jordan,
Thanks for your response. Please feel free to contact me if there are any queries about the request or if re-scoping may assist if you encounter problems.
Yours sincerely,
Evelyn
Hi Evelyn,
I've made inquiries in relation to your FOI request and have come to the view that item 1 will need re-scoping before we are able to process the request. As you may be aware, the ATO has done quite a large amount of work on multi-national profit shifting in 2015. I understand that the Government's Budget package to address multi-national profit shifting contained around ten proposed measures. There are currently ATO project teams dealing with each of these measures. I am advised that if applied to just one of those measures (the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law (MAAL) - see http://budget.gov.au/2015-16/content/glo...), your request for 'briefings, talking points and policy documents (draft or otherwise) since January 2015' would likely catch around 500 documents. Given the complex and sensitive nature of the documents and the likely need to consult with Treasury and other stakeholders, my view is that even if the request was limited to the MAAL, there would likely be grounds to refuse your request based on the work involved in processing it.
In relation to items 2 and 3, I've not yet finalised my searches, but I don't think we'll have any scope / size of request issues there.
I would be grateful if you could give me a call on 03 9285 1129 to discuss the specific documents or information that you are interested in accessing and how best we can re-scope your request to meet your needs while avoiding unnecessary expense.
Finally, you may be interested to know that in January 2015 the ATO released 67 pages of documents relating to Part 7 of the OECD’s action plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) relating to preventing the artificial avoidance of Permanent Establishment (PE) status. These are available for download from the ATO FOI disclosure log at https://www.ato.gov.au/About-ATO/Access,... (follow the link through to http://foi.iorder.com.au/ for the download link or to order a hard copy).
Kind regards,
Jordan
Jordan Wilson-Otto
Lawyer, General Counsel, ATO Corporate
Australian Taxation Office
P 03 9285 1129 F 03 9285 1702
Think digital before you print
Hi Evelyn,
Thanks for your time over the phone just now.
As discussed, I would be grateful for your consent to an extension of 14 days for the processing of your request, making the new due date for my decision 5 October 2015.
Kind regards,
Jordan.
Jordan Wilson-Otto
Lawyer, General Counsel, ATO Corporate
Australian Taxation Office
P 03 9285 1129 F 03 9285 1702
Think digital before you print
Dear Jordan,
Thanks for the assistance you have provided so far with this request. I am happy to agree to an extension to 5 October 2015.
Kind regards
Evelyn Doyle
Hi Evelyn,
Thank you for your time over the phone just now.
As discussed, I have identified three documents that together provide a
good overview of the proposed government measures to address
multi-national profit shifting. They are:
1. ‘Presentation to OECD: Australian Budget 2015-16 — Multinational
integrity measures (Talking points, undated).
2. ‘Announcements in relation to G20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit
Shifting (BEPS) recommendations’ (Briefing, 12 May 2015)
3. ‘Combating multinational tax avoidance (several measures)’
(Briefing, 12 May 2015)
Kind regards,
Jordan.
Jordan Wilson-Otto
Lawyer, General Counsel, ATO Corporate
Australian Taxation Office
P 03 9285 1129 F 03 9285 1702
Think digital before you print
Dear Jordan,
I am happy to re-scope the section on measures to address multi-national profit shifting as suggested in your correspondence as follows:
1. ‘Presentation to OECD: Australian Budget 2015-16 — Multinational
integrity measures (Talking points, undated).
2. ‘Announcements in relation to G20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit
Shifting (BEPS) recommendations’ (Briefing, 12 May 2015)
3. ‘Combating multinational tax avoidance (several measures)’
(Briefing, 12 May 2015)
Thanks for all your assistance and investigations on my behalf.
Yours sincerely,
Evelyn Doyle
Evelyn Doyle left an annotation ()
ATO is meeting to discuss how best to re-scope part of the FOI request and will advise.