Tax dodger bill passes lower house

Laws seeking to stamp out tax dodging by multinational corporations have passed the lower house of federal parliament.

Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh, Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen

The opposition will back the Turnbull government's bill to crack down on multinational tax dodgers. (AAP)

Laws that crackdown on multinational tax dodgers have passed the lower house of federal parliament.

The bill, backed by Labor on Monday, imposes stronger penalties for large companies that engage in tax avoidance and profit shifting.

It also introduces country-by-country reporting to give authorities greater visibility of multinationals' tax structures.

The laws start on January 1 and will apply to 1000 large multinationals operating in Australia with annual global revenue of $1 billion or more - companies that pose the highest risk to Australia's tax base.

Shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh said Labor would not stand in the way of attempts to tighten the tax net, no matter how small or insufficient.

He slammed the government for failing to quantify the revenue impact of the crackdown and moved an amendment calling on the government to adopt Labor's own multinational tax package which it claims will raise $7.2 billion over the next decade.

Treasurer Scott Morrison rejected the amendment and insisted it was "standard practice" not to put a figure on such measures.

He told parliament he'd been advised by the commissioner of taxation that the amount of revenue to be raised was in the "hundreds of millions of dollars".

Mr Morrison said the measure would target 80 large multinationals already identified as potential tax dodgers by the Australian Tax Office.

"This will level the playing field for taxpayers," he told parliament.


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Source: AAP



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