Tax commissioner to face Senate committee

Tax commissioner Chris Jordan will front a Senate committee on Thursday to give evidence on corporate tax avoidance.

The Senate economics reference committee is examining tax avoidance and aggressive minimisation by corporations registered in Australia and also multinational corporations operating in Australia.

That includes adequacy of current laws, tax office performance and also performance of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

The inquiry has attracted substantial interest, with 127 submissions from individuals and organisations.

In its submission, the Australian Taxation Office said most corporates paid the required amount of tax but some multinationals engaged in complex profit shifting and that threatened the business level playing field.

"Profit shifting in large and medium-sized multinational entities and private groups presents complex and sometimes costly challenges for the ATO," it said.

In one case, the audit and dispute process has run for around six years.

The ATO said it had a robust capability to tackle profit shifting but wealthy companies would increasingly challenge its capability.