Greens call for Australian tax office register to name and shame billionaires

The Greens want to name and shame billionaires on an Australian Taxation Office register that discloses their wealth and what they pay in tax.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, will propose the policy at the party’s national conference on Saturday, with other measures to tax billionaires whose wealth grew during the Covid-19 pandemic, and companies which pocketed jobkeeper wage subsidies.

Bandt has already proposed a 6% wealth tax on billionaires, which could see mining magnates Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer slugged by tax increases of $2.2bn and $586m.

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The Greens have staked out an ultra-progressive agenda ahead of the next election, with a series of revenue-raising measures – including opposition to stage three income tax cuts for middle- and high-income earners – to pay for big-spending promises like free Tafe and university, and including dental in Medicare.

Polling conducted by the online research unit for the Greens suggests that 61% of voters are more likely to vote for a party “campaigning to increase taxes on corporations and billionaires” to fully fund health, education and other services.

Some 31% said this policy would not change their vote and 8% said they would be less likely to support such a party.

In his speech, an advance copy of which was seen by Guardian Australia, Bandt says Australians “value fairness” and know that “economic inequality is out of control”.

“We stand ready to take this fight to the big end of town.

“Right now, we are only 828 votes away from being in the balance of power in the lower house,” Bandt says, in reference to the margin for Labor to regain Bass and Chisholm from the Coalition to tip the Morrison government into minority.

The Greens are targeting nine Liberal and Labor lower house seats, and believe they can pick up a Senate seat in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.

Bandt calls for new laws for the ATO to publish the wealth and tax payments of billionaires, arguing the current register revealing the amount of tax paid by big companies had “led to greater tax payments by companies that have a reputation to consider”.

“Naming and shaming [billionaires] is only the beginning, but it is a critically important step in restoring some transparency and accountability.”

He proposes a “pandemic profiteers levy” of 50% on the increase of net wealth of billionaires in the past year, which the parliamentary budget office estimated could raise between $11bn and $29bn.

The PBO said there was a “very high degree of uncertainty” in relation to the costing because billionaires would likely “employ strategies such as non‐disclosure and [take] advantage of different asset valuation methods to avoid or minimise their tax liability”.

Bandt also claims the Greens will keep fighting to “make billionaires and big corporations who profited from jobkeeper pay back what they pocketed”.

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This week a Senate motion passed calling on the government to require companies with an annual turnover of more than $50m that issued dividends, made a profit or paid executive bonuses to repay an equivalent amount of jobkeeper.

The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has welcomed companies who have voluntarily paid back jobkeeper wage subsidies but said they are under no legal obligation to do so.

Bandt argues that the Coalition is still pursuing discredited “trickle-down economics” by recommitting to the third stage of income tax cuts that will “cost us all $132bn in lost public services”.

On Thursday, the finance minister, Simon Birmingham, said the Coalition was “110%” committed to the cuts, which will flatten tax brackets so that income between $45,000 and $200,000 is taxed at the rate of 30%.

In response to Tuesday’s budget, Labor said the Coalition has granted a one-year temporary extension of tax cuts for low- to middle-income earners at a cost of $7.8bn, but middle- and high-income earners are set to get permanent cuts in stage three.

No decision has been taken by Labor about whether to call to repeal or restructure the stage three tax breaks.