Is It Apple or Star Baks That Are Shifting Profits?

This episode’s guest is Professor Pascalis Raimondos, head of the School of Economics and Finance at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and an expert on international taxation and trade issues.

Use these timestamps to jump right into Gene and Pascalis’s conversation:

• 1:45 – are tax avoidance and tax evasion a major concern?
• 3:40 – thin capitalisation as a way multinationals can minimise tax
• 5:00 – transfer pricing as another way
• 10:25 - having a lot of intangible capital (e.g. Apple, Starbucks) can assist in tax minimisation
• 14:20 - need for international cooperation e.g. formula(ry) apportionment
• 21:35 – Panama papers, shell companies, The Laundromat on Netflix 
• 27:40 – following Piketty, do we need inheritance/wealth taxes?
• 31:25 – economic benefits of Trump corporate tax cut in US
• 34:40 – Pascalis recommends a cash flow tax, which Gene notes was suggested by the tax review led by Australian Treasury Secretary Ken Henry (see the 2010 Final Report)

Gene and Pascalis’s conversation was recorded on 28 November 2019 in Pascalis’s office at QUT, Gardens Point Campus, Brisbane, using a Zoom H4n Pro digital recorder and Shure SM58 microphones.