The most recent campaign for tax justice is now entering its tenth year. The tax justice campaign, invigorated by the Global Financial Crisis, successfully took the issue of corporate tax avoidance out of the realm of economists and tax professionals, into the mainstream political agenda.

As a result, governments have been forced to act. In Australia, this has taken three main forms. Firstly, Senate inquiries into corporate tax avoidance were held in 2015 and 2017. Secondly, the Australian government, through the G20, has been a strong supporter of the OECD’s multilateral BEPS initiative. Finally, the government has acted unilaterally to strengthen corporate tax regulation.

This presentation examines the response of MNCs and tax intermediaries in Australia to this shifting paradigm. What, if any, has been the change in corporate strategy following the 2015 and 2017 government inquiries, and introduction of tighter rules around profit shifting? Has this resulted in some rebalancing of the tax burden, transferring greater responsibility onto multinational firms? And, what is the likelihood of further unilateral or multilateral action? This presentation responds to these questions in the broader landscape of MNC power and the global tax justice movement.

About the speaker

Ainsley Elbra is lecturer in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. Her research is focused on globalisation, private governance and business-state relations. She is currently working on an Australian Research Council funded Discovery Project titled, Catching Capital: Understanding and Influencing Corporate Strategy. This work on corporate responses to the tax justice movement follows her recently published co-edited collection Business, Civil Society and the ‘New’ Politics of Corporate Tax Justice: Paying a Fair Share?

Ainsley has also written extensively on the power of MNCs in the mining industry. Her monograph Governing African Gold Mining: Private Governance and the Resource Curse was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017 and her work appears in the journals Business and Politics and Global Policy.

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