Lend Lease denies claims of profit shifting through tax havens
LEND Lease has denied claims it shifts profits from Australia through tax havens such as Luxembourg in its submission to the Senate Inquiry into Corporate Tax Avoidance.
Lend Lease was named last year in the “Lux Leaks” scandal, in which former employees of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Europe blew the whistle on companies using subsidiaries in the secretive principality.
Lend Lease chief executive officer Steve McCann said the company’s subsidiaries in Luxembourg were “historic” and were established in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“All investments in Luxembourg have, in the ordinary course of business, either been sold, wound up, or put into liquidation and Lend Lease has no active subsidiaries in that jurisdiction,” Mr McCann said. “The assets involved were not located in Australia and the income from the assets was not connected with Australia.”
The submission came as Australian National University tax professor Miranda Stewart released a detailed analysis of the Luxembourg tax structures, identifying Macquarie, the Future Fund and Babcock & Brown as using the principality to minimise tax, but with no mention of Lend Lease.
Lend Lease has also come under scrutiny over claims it pays a tax in Australia well below the 30 per cent corporate tax rate, estimated at 15 per cent, however Mr McCann said the company paid 21.2 per cent.
