Chevron earned $1.7billion Australian profit - paid only $248 tax

Bloody criminals. Thieves. The sooner we can fuck off our dependence on these bastards the better. Roll on renewables!

Simple explanation as to how they did this? Well talk about cooking the books. They wrote the recipe I reckon. It's not even complicated, just out and out theft from right under our noses.

See there's US Chevron, and "subsidiary" Australia Chevron. US Chevron borrows money at low interest, then lends it to Australia Chevron at high interest. That's it. The money earned by US Chevron apparently ends up in limbo and not taxable to the US or Australia. All $1.7billion of it.

What's more, Chevron US gets to make up the interest rate it charges Chevron Australia. A mere 25 times more than it charges anyone else it lends to. 

Chevron Australia's US parent company paid income tax of only $248 last year despite earning an estimated $1.73 billion profit on interest charges to its Gorgon LNG development, documents filed with the Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance show. 

Chevron Australia Petroleum Company, incorporated in Delaware, charged its subsidiary Chevron Australia $1.8 billion in 2014, more than 25 times the interest cost it pays to external lenders, on $36.5 billion of debt. 

None of this profit appears to have been taxable in the US, with Chevron APP paying less than $US200 a year tax for the last decade, documents submitted to the tax inquiry by the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) show. 

Chevron Australia has confirmed the Australian Tax Office is auditing its funding arrangements on the $US54 billion Greater Gorgon LNG development, after the Federal Court last month confirmed penalty assessments on an earlier tax-free funding scheme by the group. 

It's believed a senior US Chevron executive will be in Australia next week to testify before the Senate tax inquiry on November 18. 

Chevron's Greater Gorgon partners, ExxonMobil and Shell are also expected to appear before the Senate committee next week, as well as Uber and AirBnB. 

The ITF submission also included corporate filings by Chevron companies in Singapore which show the interest rates for unsecured loans between Chevron group subsidiaries last year were between 0.17 per cent and 0.19 per cent. 

During the same period Chevron APP charged Chevron Australia more than 5 per cent interest, some 25 times the rate paid by the Singapore associates. FinancialReview