Media articles like this make things harder to understand, not easier. For the love of $#@ just show me the accounts! I assume that they have paid to download them from ASIC (or from one of ASIC’s resellers). Just link me to the results. The accounts can show further breakdown of large totals like “general and administrative expenses”.
Here’s my take:
A Com S: $292.3 m revenue
A W S: $306 m revenue
A Cor S: $490 m revenue
Total $1088.3 m revenue i.e. “more than $1 billion”
All figures relate solely to Australian operations.
I can’t see how you got this. I see no discrepancy in the revenue numbers.
I think you might be mistaken about this.
Are there some amber flags there with transfer pricing and thin capitalisation issues and related party transations? Yes. Does that mean that there is necessarily anything dodgy there? No.
The ATO has the legal authority and expertise to get to the bottom of it. I don’t. The ABC doesn’t.
As an example, A Com S has an obvious need to operate a massive web site. Is it reasonable for them to source that from A W S? Yes. Is the AWS underlying cloud system located overseas and hence the costs to operate it are overseas? Yes.
Is the Australian government responsible for some of the reasons why a company might choose to locate its cloud systems outside Australia? Yes.
One comment on the ABC article:
While big changes to the global tax system are coming, Mr Ward said there would be a fight between countries over how to fairly distribute the revenue.
This is the stumbling block to an OECD-wide agreement. To some extent, this is a zero sum game. Some of the tax that Australia could claw in, would be at the expense of some other country.
