Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, today commented on new tax statistics released by the ATO revealing tax credits to oil and gas giants have ballooned to $324 billion. 

"The PRRT is the most egregious rort in the Australian tax code.

"The failure of successive Liberal and Labor governments to address this problem has resulted in oil and gas companies accumulating a whopping $324 billion worth of tax offsets.

"This equates to around 70% of the Commonwealth Government’s total revenue.

The Senate Inquiry into Corporate Tax Avoidance report released today reveals the Labor Party is signing off on the Liberals' policy not to touch the tax system for existing petroleum resource projects. The Australian Greens said that this will allow hundreds of billions of dollars of petroleum resources to be extracted without a cent in royalties or taxes paid under the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax for decades to come. 

Greens Treasury spokesperson welcomes the announcement of a government review into potential rorting of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax and the Commonwealth Royalty regime. Yesterday in Senate question time we asked the Government to consider doing this.

Senator Whish-Wilson said, “The Government has known about potential rorting by big fossil fuel companies of the PRRT and the oil and gas royalty regimes for years. Everyone should pay their fair share.

“The Greens have been raising questions about the integrity of these schemes in the last parliament and in this one.

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson says it is astonishing that in a week the Senate is squabbling over just tens of millions in revenue from backpackers, that the ANAO have just released a bombshell report (LINK HERE) saying that oil and gas companies may have wrongly claimed billions in tax deductions.