Google to pay $481.5m in win for Australian Tax Office bringing total collected from IT giants to $1.25 billion

The Guardian, 18 December 2019:

The search engine giant Google has agreed to pay $481.5m to the Australian Tax Office in a major win for the agency in its battle to force big technology companies to pay tax in Australia.

The settlement, which covers a decade’s worth of tax between 2008 and 2018, will also help bolster a federal budget surplus that has been undermined by weak economic growth and the collapse of the Morrison government’s robodebt scheme.

It follows a lengthy campaign to get multinationals, especially technology and resources giants, to pay tax in Australia that was launched in 2015 by the then treasurer, Joe Hockey, and spearheaded by the tax commissioner, Chris Jordan.

Moves included more audits of tech and resources companies through a special ATO taskforce and introducing a suite of laws designed to force tech companies to book sales made in Australia locally, rather than running them through a tax haven such as Singapore or Ireland.

Deputy commissioner Mark Konza, who has overseen much of the ATO’s work dealing with tax-shy multinationals, said the settlement was “another great outcome for the Australian tax system”.

The ATO said Google’s settlement, together with others made by companies including Microsoft, Apple and Facebook, brought the total extra amount of cash collected from ecommerce industry players to $1.25bn.....

Unfortunately as Australia's federal budget blackhole is currently $2.1 billion and will reach a cumulative total of at least $7 billion by June 2021, the back taxes paid to date by these multinational corporations will be only a slight, passing relief for the national economy.