Greens take hard line on tax avoidance

Diplomatic sanctions against countries that facilitate multinational tax avoidance are part of a hard-line Australian Greens policy the party says will raise at least $1.69 billion over forward estimates.

The 18-pronged policy which proposes changes to tax law, public disclosure, enforcement and global diplomacy was revealed on Friday, with Senator Peter Whish-Wilson taking a swipe at superpowers the United States and United Kingdom for not doing enough.

"It's not just small countries like the Cayman Islands and Panama, if the US and the UK don't get involved in this, (Australia) can push them to do it," the senator told reporters in Hobart.

The Greens want Australia to focus on the need for information sharing about tax avoidance during negotiation on deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

"Why aren't we including tax dodging and aggressive tax minimisation into these kind of multilateral deals?

"If countries won't exchange information with Australia then we can actually penalise them by leveraging higher taxes and higher withholding taxes," he said.

The policy would also see more than $2 billion over forward estimates thrown at the Australian Taxation Office to strengthen resourcing, while the ATO and ASIC would both be armed with new laws to pursue tax cheats.

A crack team of the nation's top 20 accountants and lawyers would be poached from the private sector to form a tax recovery unit, run at an annual cost of some $20 million.

Measures would be introduced to protect and encourage whistleblowers.

"If they're working for companies that are laundering money overseas or that are aggressively avoiding tax, we want to hear from them," Senator Whish-Wilson said, proposing they be rewarded with an ongoing income.

It's not acceptable that corporations can get away without paying tax, he added.

"You and I might get audited twice in our life with severe penalties if we're caught for not declaring tax deductions the right way. How is it these companies can exploit loopholes and laws and get away with it?"