CANBERRA: The Australian Tax Office has said it has received “a number of discrepancies” among hundreds of Swiss HSBC accounts held by Australians and has recovered more than $30m in tax liabilities over the past five years.
On Monday, the Guardian, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and news organisations around the world published a series of reports that exposed how the Swiss arm of the HSBC bank helped wealthy clients dodge taxes around the world. The files have also revealed that hundreds of prominent Australians held Swiss accounts with the bank.HSBC files show how Swiss bank helped clients dodge taxes and hide millions. Data in massive cache of leaked secret bank account files lifts lid on questionable practices at subsidiary of one of world’s biggest financial institutions
The Australian Labor party and the Australian Greens have criticised the government’s commitment to tax transparency in the wake of the revelations, as a major Senate inquiry is set to commence into corporate tax avoidance. In a statement to the Guardian on Monday, the ATO confirmed for the first time it received a leaked cache of 261 Swiss HSBC bank files in 2010, which it believes to be the same data obtained by the Guardian and other news groups.
HSBC Swiss files: leading Australian figures held offshore bank accounts:
More than 300 Australians have been identified in leaked offshore banking files that include the observations of HSBC’s Swiss arm about its interactions with clients . The Greens leader, Christine Milne, who initiated the upcoming Senate inquiry, questioned why the government had not taken action earlier, given the data had been available for almost five years. The amnesty offer by the ATO expired in December 2014.
Full statement from the ATO on the publication of the HSBC Swiss bank data:
“In 2010 the ATO received a disk from a tax treaty partner containing data on 261 HSBC Swiss bank accounts held by Australian taxpayers. We believe this to be the same data received by the ICIJ and reported today. “The Australia–Switzerland tax treaty came into effect in October 2014. The ATO has already initiated a number of exchanges of information requests with Switzerland. One of these requests alone relates to 14 Swiss bank accounts. Overall Australia has over 100 information exchange treaty partners and will continue to use this network to collect information about individual taxpayers’ offshore activities. “The reporting by the ICIJ of the HSBC Swiss data highlights that no taxpayer is safe from being uncovered. The ATO regularly receives information from overseas authorities and informers and will continue to take action on those taxpayers who fail to pay the right amount of tax in Australia.”
