The ATO has provided an update on its latest focus areas and the compliance projects it is undertaking to reduce corporate tax avoidance. These include:

  • investigating possible manipulation of the thin capitalisation rules, including 27 taxpayers’ asset revaluations totalling $78 billion;
  • looking into arrangements that move intellectual property assets and rights offshore to multinational entities’ related parties;
  • focusing on the treatment of oil and gas industry labour costs associated with high-value asset construction;
  • examining the arm’s length conditions operating in pharmaceutical industry arrangements;
  • identifying tax professionals and advisers who are promoting unacceptable tax planning; and
  • looking at the tax affairs of various major e-commerce players.