In 2013-2014, Vodafone raked in $3.6 billion in revenue in Australia, but it paid a big fat ZERO in taxes.
We don't know for sure whether Vodafone (or the other 578 major companies named by the Australian Taxation Office as having paid NO tax in 2014) is engaged in a sophisticated corporate tax avoidance scheme. But it starts to look dodgy when you see that all of these companies had a combined revenue of over $400 billion and paid no tax on any of it.
If Vodafone just paid a fraction of tax on its huge revenue, we could stop the health cuts that mean pap smears will no longer be free, or cuts to paid parental leave that will hit low-income earners the hardest.
To get to the bottom of this, we're going straight to Vodafone to find out. By pressuring Vodafone to release a statement, we're opening up a space for greater scrutiny of its $0 tax bill.
Tell Vodafone to explain why it paid no taxes in 2014 now.
It goes without saying that when big corporations don't pay their fair share, ordinary people like you and me are left to foot the bill.
While getting Vodafone to publicly respond to the the fact that it paid no tax in 2014 is a small step, it's an important one. It shows multinationals that we will demand to know what's going on if they rake in billions of dollars, but have significantly smaller tax bills than the average person.
The SumOfUs community has been instrumental in tackling tax avoidance head on -- we're pursuing a case to prosecute HSBC for its tax evasion in the UK, supported by over 60,000 members, and for this we've made front page news.
Let's keep fighting for equality. Join us in making sure Vodafone is doing the right thing.
Tell Vodafone to tell us why it paid no tax in 2014 now.
More information:
Tax transparency: tax paid by Australia's largest companies on $100m profits revealed in new report, ABC Net, 16 December 2015
Zero tax: Data reveals how much tax major Australian corporations pay, ABC News, 17 December 2015