New offshore tax laws not powerful enough

DOUBTS have been raised about whether planned new laws will be powerful enough to rake in billions of offshore tax dollars from multi-national companies.

TREASURER Joe Hockey has promised to stop companies using complex schemes to escape paying tax, but University of Sydney academic Anthony Ting says a close look at the draft legislation suggests it is far from comprehensive.
“It is a step in the right direction – but possibly not a big enough step,” he wrote on The Conversation website, adding only two of the five multinational companies nominated by the treasurer – Google and Microsoft – were likely to be covered.