WeRise · Policy platform
Tax & Corporate Reform
Key findings
- $19.72 billionTreasury estimates that the 50% capital-gains-tax discount for individuals and trusts reduced Australian revenue by $19.72 billion in 2024–25. Source: Australian Treasury · 2025–26 Tax Expenditures and Insights Statement · 2025
- $95.7 billionLarge corporate entities in the ATO’s transparency population paid $95.7 billion in income tax in 2023–24 – the second-highest annual total recorded in the series. Source: Australian Taxation Office · Corporate Tax Transparency Report 2023–24 · 2025
- $358 millionThe Fair Work Ombudsman recovered $358 million in unpaid wages for more than 249,000 workers in 2024–25. Source: Fair Work Ombudsman · Annual Report 2024–25 · 2025
- 58.4%Without policy change, Treasury projects personal income tax will rise from 50.5% of total tax receipts in 2022–23 to 58.4% by 2062–63. Source: Australian Treasury · 2023 Intergenerational Report · 2023
Part 01
The Case for Change
Why Tax & Corporate Reform matters
Prosperity Must Be Shared
Reward productive enterprise, protect workers and make power answer to the public.
Australia is a wealthy country, but prosperity does not distribute itself. It is shaped by tax rules, wages, ownership, bargaining power, competition, public investment and the strength of institutions that enforce the law. When those systems work, entrepreneurship can create jobs, consumers can choose fairly priced goods, workers can keep the wages they earn and public services can be funded sustainably. When they fail, wealth concentrates, household budgets tighten and public confidence in democracy declines.
The current tax trajectory deserves attention. Treasury projects that, absent policy change, personal income tax will increase from 50.5% of total tax receipts in 2022–23 to 58.4% in 2062–63, while company tax falls from 23.5% to 18.0% of total receipts.1 These are long-run projections, not guaranteed outcomes. They nevertheless identify a structural risk: Australia may rely ever more heavily on workers’ incomes to fund government while taxes on corporate profits and other bases grow more slowly.
The case for reform is not that companies pay no tax. They do. The ATO reported that 4,110 entities in the 2023–24 corporate tax-transparency population paid $95.7 billion in tax, the second-highest aggregate amount in the report’s history.2 Any serious policy must acknowledge this rather than imply that all corporate profits are untaxed. But the same report makes clear why transparent reporting and enforcement matter: these entities recorded $3.279 trillion in total income, $365.5 billion in taxable income and $95.7 billion in tax payable.2 The difference between turnover, taxable profit and tax paid requires explanation, scrutiny and public trust.
Tax concessions deserve the same scrutiny as direct spending. Treasury estimates the capital-gains-tax discount for individuals and trusts cost $19.72 billion in 2024–25.3 The discount exempts 50% of eligible nominal capital gains after 12 months.3 This does not mean every recipient is wealthy or every capital gain is unearned. It does mean income from asset appreciation can be taxed more lightly than income from work, especially at higher marginal rates. In 2022–23, more than 1.1 million individuals realised a net capital gain and 71% benefited from the discount.3
Market power is a second front. The ACCC’s supermarket inquiry found that every local market it studied had concentration above the regulator’s competition-concern threshold, and 5% were local monopolies – almost all in regional areas.5 It found that ALDI, Coles and Woolworths increased average product margins over the preceding five financial years.6 This is not proof that every grocery-price rise was unjustified or illegal. It is strong evidence that Australians need an ACCC able to investigate opaque pricing, prevent anti-competitive conduct, protect suppliers and remedy concentrated market structures.
Workers need institutions with equivalent strength. In 2024–25, the Fair Work Ombudsman recovered $358 million for more than 249,000 underpaid workers.8 Wage theft transfers income from people who have earned it to organisations with greater legal and financial power. Stronger penalties, proactive enforcement, secure whistleblower pathways, union access under lawful rules and personal accountability for deliberate conduct are not anti-business measures. They are the minimum conditions for honest businesses to compete fairly.
WeRise will build an economy where investment, invention and productive risk-taking are encouraged – but where corporate success carries obligations. Tax must be fair across work, capital and wealth. Boards must face consequences for serious misconduct. Regulators must have resources and powers proportionate to concentrated markets. Workers and consumers must not be expected to enforce the law alone.
Part 02
Evidence and Experience
Tax & Corporate Reform: what other countries show
Rules That Make Markets Serve Society
OECD/G20 · United Kingdom · United States · New Zealand
International experience shows that tax integrity and corporate accountability require institutional design, not slogans. The OECD/G20 global minimum-tax framework responds to profit shifting by setting a floor beneath multinational effective tax rates. The United Kingdom’s corporate-transparency reforms show how beneficial-ownership rules and identity verification can make company registers more useful for law enforcement and the public.
United States competition reform demonstrates both the potential and legal difficulty of confronting concentrated markets. New Zealand offers relevant lessons on tax-policy process and the limits of relying on broad consumption and income taxes without a comprehensive capital-gains regime. These examples are not templates. Australia has distinct constitutional, tax and corporate structures. They nonetheless demonstrate that governments can set stronger rules while retaining an innovative, competitive market economy.
OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework, implemented domestically by participating jurisdictions including Australia · OECD/G20 agreement reached 2021; Australian global and domestic minimum-tax rules commenced for income years beginning on or after 1 January 2024
Pillar Two Global Anti-Base Erosion rules, including a 15% minimum effective tax rate for in-scope multinational enterprise groups; Australia applies an Income Inclusion Rule, Undertaxed Profits Rule and Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax Applies to multinational groups with annual consolidated revenue of at least €750 million, approximately A$1.2 billion
- The global minimum-tax framework establishes a minimum effective tax rate of 15% for in-scope multinational groups.
- Australia’s rules apply to multinational groups with annual global revenue of at least €750 million, approximately A$1.2 billion.
- The design permits a jurisdiction to collect a domestic top-up tax where effective tax on local profits falls below 15%.
- The rules address low-taxed profits on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis rather than simply comparing a group’s global average rate.
- Revenue outcomes depend on group structures, foreign implementation, accounting data and tax-credit treatment; a settled Australian revenue figure should not be claimed without Treasury costing.
Australia should fully implement, administer and evaluate the global minimum-tax rules while retaining stronger domestic tools against profit shifting, related-party debt manipulation and opaque ownership. A 15% floor is a baseline, not a substitute for a fair domestic corporate tax system or sector-specific public-interest regulation.
United Kingdom · Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act enacted 26 October 2023; initial Companies House powers commenced 4 March 2024; mandatory identity verification commenced in phases from 18 November 2025
Corporate-register reform requiring stronger identity verification, powers for Companies House to query and remove suspect filings, better beneficial-ownership transparency, more lawful registered-office requirements and new offences and penalties Applies across UK-registered companies, relevant officers, persons with significant control and specified overseas entities holding UK land
- The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023.
- Companies House gained new powers to query information, request supporting evidence and remove inaccurate information from 4 March 2024.
- Companies must maintain an appropriate registered office address and supply a registered email address.
- Mandatory identity verification for company directors and persons with significant control commenced from 18 November 2025.
- Maintaining unverified status while registered can constitute a criminal offence under the phased regime.
Australia should develop a verified beneficial-ownership register connected to ASIC records, tax administration and anti-money-laundering enforcement, with robust safeguards for safety and privacy. Public corporate data should be accurate enough to expose fraud, corruption and tax abuse – not merely a database of self-reported entries.
United States · Major federal competition-enforcement actions and merger-guideline reforms intensified from 2021; policy and litigation continuing
Strengthened antitrust enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, including revised Merger Guidelines, challenges to mergers and conduct cases against dominant firms Economy-wide federal enforcement across technology, health, labour, agriculture, retail and other concentrated sectors
- The 2023 US Merger Guidelines set out 11 analytical principles for assessing potentially unlawful mergers and acquisitions.
- The Guidelines identify a post-merger Herfindahl-Hirschman Index above 1,800 and an increase of more than 100 points as one indicator that a merger may substantially lessen competition.
- US competition enforcement has challenged mergers and conduct across multiple concentrated sectors, but the outcome of individual cases depends on courts and statutory tests.
- The legal and administrative costs of complex antitrust litigation are significant and enforcement outcomes can take years.
- Stronger competition policy requires both prospective merger control and remedies for entrenched market power, not only fines after harm occurs.
Australia should strengthen the ACCC’s ability to stop harmful acquisitions before markets become irreversibly concentrated, particularly in groceries, telecommunications, banking, energy, digital platforms, health and essential services. Australia should not import US thresholds mechanically; it should develop statutory tests suited to Australian market size and concentration.
New Zealand · Tax Working Group 2018–2019; subsequent policy debate and selective reforms continuing
Independent Tax Working Group review of the structure, fairness and sustainability of New Zealand’s tax system, including consideration of a broad capital-gains tax, environmental taxes, business taxation and retirement-income settings National policy review commissioned by the New Zealand Government; public consultation and modelling across household, business and fiscal settings
- The Tax Working Group recommended extending taxation of capital gains to a broad range of assets, excluding the family home and certain other assets.
- The Group modelled a broad capital-gains tax as raising revenue over time, but estimates depended heavily on design, valuation, transition and behavioural assumptions.
- New Zealand’s government did not proceed with the proposed broad capital-gains tax in 2019.
- The process demonstrated that tax-reform legitimacy depends on transparent consultation, transition arrangements and clear treatment of the family home, retirement savings and small business.
- The absence of a reform does not establish that the underlying tax-base problem is resolved; it highlights the political difficulty of capital-tax reform.
Australia should not repeat a rushed “big bang” tax debate. It should establish an independent Tax Equity and Reform Commission, publish distributional modelling and stage changes to capital-income concessions with clear protections for the principal home, genuine small business and low-balance retirement savings.
Part 03
Costs and Trade-offs
The cost of Tax & Corporate Reform
Fair Reform Funds a Fairer Future
The relevant question is not only what reform costs, but who pays when the current system is left unchanged.
Tax and corporate reform has no single “price tag.” Some measures raise revenue by reducing concessions or improving compliance; others require upfront investment in regulators, data systems, courts, corporate-register reform and worker enforcement. Still others – such as lowering taxes on genuine productive investment while taxing excess returns or harmful conduct more effectively – can be designed to be revenue neutral over time. The fiscal analysis must distinguish between a gross cost, a revenue estimate, a behavioural response and a long-term economic effect.
The largest immediately identifiable revenue item in this dossier is the capital-gains-tax discount for individuals and trusts. Treasury estimated the revenue forgone at $19.72 billion in 2024–25 and projected $21.79 billion in 2026–27.3 These figures are tax-expenditure estimates, not automatic savings available to government. Reforming the discount would alter taxpayer behaviour, asset prices, realisation timing and interactions with other provisions. Any actual policy must therefore be costed by Treasury or the Parliamentary Budget Office after its precise design is settled.
A corporate-accountability package also requires funding. ASIC secured $104.1 million in civil penalties in 2024–25 and $16.8 million in criminal fines, while commencing 38 new civil cases.10 Penalties are not a stable revenue source and should not be treated as one. Their primary purpose is deterrence. Likewise, Fair Work Ombudsman recoveries are money returned to workers, not general revenue: $358 million was recovered for more than 249,000 workers in 2024–25.8
The Productivity Commission’s 2025 corporate-tax proposal demonstrates a different approach. It proposed a hybrid system – 20% company tax for firms with annual revenue up to $1 billion, 28% for larger companies, and a 5% net cashflow tax – modelled as revenue neutral in the medium term within the company-tax system. It estimated investment could rise by $10 billion and GDP by $13.3 billion.11 These are modelled outcomes, not settled fiscal facts, but they show that reform can be designed around productive investment as well as redistribution.
| Item | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue forgone from individual and trust CGT discount | +$19.72 billion | Treasury tax-expenditure estimate for 2024–25; not a guaranteed revenue yield from any reform. |
| Projected revenue forgone from individual and trust CGT discount | +$21.79 billion | Treasury projection for 2026–27 under current policy settings. |
| Fair Work Ombudsman recoveries for underpaid workers | +$358 million | Returned to workers in 2024–25; not government revenue, but a direct correction of unlawful wage transfers. |
| ASIC civil penalties ordered by courts | +$104.1 million | Civil penalties in 2024–25; should be treated as deterrence, not as a reliable funding stream. |
| ASIC criminal fines ordered by courts | +$16.8 million | Criminal fines secured in 2024–25; not a stable or appropriate budget-revenue assumption. |
| Productivity Commission hybrid company-tax reform – investment effect | +$10 billion | Modelled increase in investment under the Commission’s 2025 recommended package. |
| Productivity Commission hybrid company-tax reform – GDP effect | +$13.3 billion | Modelled GDP increase under the Commission’s recommended package. |
| WeRise Tax & Corporate Reform package – net budget position | Not yet costed | Requires final design of CGT reform, negative-gearing treatment, superannuation concessions, integrity measures, competition powers, regulator funding and transition arrangements. |
The strongest objections to Tax & Corporate Reform
The strongest economic objection is that higher taxes on capital, companies or investment property may discourage investment, reduce productivity, lower wages and encourage capital to move offshore.
This is a genuine risk, particularly in a small, open economy competing for internationally mobile capital. Australia should not design policy around the assumption that corporate profits are costless to tax. The Productivity Commission’s 2025 report explicitly argues that current corporate-tax settings can inhibit investment and favour incumbents.11 The evidence-based response is targeted reform: reduce tax on normal productive investment where warranted, strengthen allowances for genuine investment, and fund this through measures that better tax economic rents, unproductive concessions and avoidance. This is why the Commission’s hybrid cashflow-tax model is worth evaluating, not automatically adopting.
A second objection is that reforming capital-gains-tax concessions or negative gearing could reduce housing supply, lower retirement savings or trigger disruptive asset-price falls.
These risks depend heavily on design. Some investment-property owners do provide rental housing, and sudden changes can create uncertainty. But tax concessions can also increase demand for existing assets without adding new dwellings. A responsible policy should grandfather genuinely necessary transitional arrangements only where evidence supports them, protect owner-occupied homes, coordinate reform with public and affordable housing supply, and publish distributional modelling before legislation. It should not promise that tax reform alone will solve rents or house prices.
Third, stronger corporate penalties may make directors excessively risk averse, deter qualified board members and produce defensive compliance rather than better outcomes.
The response is proportionality. Personal liability should focus on serious, knowing, repeated or reckless misconduct – not ordinary commercial failure. Safe-harbour protections, clear standards, independent review and due process are essential. However, the fact that misconduct can be difficult to prove is not a reason to leave boards insulated where workers, consumers, investors or taxpayers suffer foreseeable harm.
Fourth, competition policy can be overestimated.
Breaking up firms or blocking mergers does not automatically lower prices; scale can create efficiencies, and in a relatively small market some concentration may be unavoidable. The ACCC’s supermarkets inquiry did not find legal proof of “excessive pricing.”6 WeRise should not impose arbitrary price controls as a substitute for analysis. Instead, it should strengthen merger scrutiny, require transparent data, support entry and supplier bargaining, improve consumer information, prohibit misleading practices and reserve structural remedies for demonstrated, durable market harm.
Fifth, tax transparency can compromise privacy, commercial confidentiality or personal security.
Beneficial-ownership information can be misused, especially by criminals or harassers. The policy must distinguish between public-interest disclosure, regulator-only data and protected personal information. Verified ownership registers should be accurate, auditable, privacy-protective and subject to lawful access rules, not a wholesale publication of personal data.
Finally, there is a credibility risk in presenting a broad ideological agenda without costed choices.
This dossier therefore recommends Position Paper status. Before WeRise adopts final rates or revenue claims, it should commission independent costing, consult workers, small business, tax experts, unions, community organisations, First Nations representatives and affected sectors, and publish clear transition plans. Fairness requires both ambition and administrative competence.
Part 04
The Australian Design
How Tax & Corporate Reform would work in Australia
A Fair Economy Compact
Tax productive wealth fairly, regulate corporate power firmly and make honest enterprise easier.
WeRise proposes a Fair Economy Compact built on five principles: work should not be taxed more harshly than passive wealth; productive investment should be rewarded; corporate power should be transparent and accountable; workers and consumers should be able to enforce their rights; and public revenue should fund the foundations of dignity. The Compact is not a single tax rise or a single corporate-law amendment. It is a coordinated program spanning Treasury, the ATO, ACCC, ASIC, the Fair Work Ombudsman, the Fair Work Commission, AUSTRAC, state revenue offices and public-procurement agencies.
First, establish an independent Tax Equity and Reform Commission. Its initial mandate would be to publish distributional modelling and staged options for reforming the 50% individual and trust capital-gains-tax discount, negative gearing, high-balance superannuation concessions, trust-income rules and tax treatment of wealth transfers. The commission must protect the principal residence, avoid retrospective taxation, recognise genuine small-business and farming needs, and publish the effects by income, gender, age, location and wealth group. Treasury estimates the current individual and trust CGT discount at $19.72 billion in 2024–25, making it a necessary starting point for public scrutiny.3
Second, create a productive-investment company-tax pathway. Rather than blanket corporate tax cuts, WeRise should consult on the Productivity Commission’s hybrid model: a lower company-tax rate for small and medium firms, stronger immediate investment deductions, a net cashflow tax on economic rents, and a fair rate for large profitable corporations. The Commission modelled a package with 20% company tax for firms with annual revenue up to $1 billion, 28% for larger firms and a 5% net cashflow tax across companies, estimated to be revenue neutral over the medium term.11 This proposal should be independently tested for distributional and sectoral effects before adoption.
Third, build a corporate-accountability regime. Australia should establish a verified beneficial-ownership register; require director and beneficial-owner identity verification; expand public country-by-country reporting; strengthen whistleblower protection; make serious and repeated misconduct a basis for director disqualification; and require large companies receiving public grants, contracts or subsidies to report tax, workforce, supply-chain and public-benefit outcomes. The United Kingdom’s phased Companies House reforms provide a useful institutional comparison.12
Fourth, give regulators modern powers. The ACCC needs stronger merger controls, recurring market-study powers, transparent price-and-margin data in essential markets, and enforceable remedies when concentration harms consumers or suppliers. ASIC needs stable enforcement funding, stronger audit and disclosure powers and a faster route to personal accountability for executives and directors who authorise or ignore serious misconduct. The Fair Work Ombudsman needs sustained funding for proactive audits, multilingual outreach, data matching, whistleblower support and recovery action.
Fifth, strengthen worker voice while maintaining clean governance. WeRise should support collective bargaining, sectoral bargaining options in fragmented low-paid industries, stronger rights of entry under lawful safeguards, and better protection for labour-hire and gig-economy workers. Union officials and employer associations should meet high standards of financial disclosure, democratic election and anti-corruption compliance. The policy’s aim is powerful but accountable institutions on both sides of the employment relationship.
Implementation should proceed in stages: regulator funding and transparency legislation in the first 18 months; published tax-reform options and consultation in year one; legislation for agreed revenue measures in years two and three; and annual public reporting on revenue, market concentration, wage recovery, enforcement outcomes and distributional effects.
Part 05
People and Transition
Who Tax & Corporate Reform affects
The Rules Decide Who Gets Ahead
Tax and corporate law shape the daily lives of workers, households, small businesses and communities.
The most direct beneficiaries of reform are workers, consumers, renters, small businesses, honest employers and communities dependent on public services. A worker paid correctly keeps the income they earned. A consumer in a competitive market has more meaningful choice and clearer prices. A small business does not have to compete against a large firm that exploits market power, uses opaque supply arrangements or can afford aggressive tax planning. A renter benefits when tax and housing settings stop favouring speculative asset accumulation over secure homes.
The Fair Work Ombudsman recovered $358 million in unpaid wages for more than 249,000 workers in 2024–25.8 That is more than a compliance statistic. It represents wages that should have reached household budgets in the first place. Almost $213 million of those recoveries related to nearly 118,000 workers in the large-corporate sector.8 This does not imply all large businesses underpay staff; it demonstrates why enforcement must be capable of addressing systemic errors and deliberate misconduct wherever they occur.
Case study
A hospitality worker is rostered across irregular shifts, receives digital payslips she struggles to interpret and assumes her employer’s payroll system is correct. After years of missed penalty rates and unpaid breaks, she discovers that hundreds of dollars a week have been withheld. A stronger Fair Work Ombudsman, accessible wage-record tools, union and community legal support, and personal liability for deliberate wage theft would make the right to lawful pay real. This is an illustrative scenario, not an individual case record.
The tax side is less visible but just as consequential. Treasury estimates that the 50% individual and trust CGT discount cost $19.72 billion in 2024–25.3 The benefit is not evenly distributed, because the capacity to realise large capital gains is concentrated among people who own appreciating assets. Yet reform must be careful: some recipients are retirees, small investors, farmers or people selling a business. A fair design should therefore use thresholds, transitional arrangements, principal-home protections and targeted relief rather than crude retrospective action.
Case study
A teacher and a disability-support worker rent in a suburb where investors increasingly bid against first-home buyers for existing dwellings. Their wages are taxed automatically, while investors can access deductions and concessional treatment of eventual capital gains. Reforming tax incentives alongside new social and affordable housing would not solve housing scarcity alone, but it would remove part of the policy bias towards speculative demand. This is an illustrative scenario, not an individual case record.
Consumers are also affected by concentrated markets. The ACCC found that every local supermarket market studied had a concentration measure above its competition-concern threshold, while 5% were local monopolies – almost all in regional areas.5 Regional households and independent suppliers are particularly exposed when alternatives are distant or commercially weak. Stronger competition policy can help, but it is not a substitute for income support, wage growth, housing reform or public services.
The people likely to oppose elements of reform include large asset holders, corporations benefiting from current concessions, professional advisers, industry associations and some investors concerned about uncertainty. Their concerns should be taken seriously where they concern genuine investment, retirement security, jobs and compliance cost. The policy response is to target concentrated advantage, phase reforms carefully and provide certainty – not to preserve unfair rules indefinitely.
Part 06
Related policies
Tax & Corporate Reform sits within a wider set of WeRise policies.
- Economy & Work: more WeRise policies in this pillar
- WeRise: all 29 policies across seven pillars
Notes
Sources and Supporting Documents
- Australian Treasury. 2023 Intergenerational Report: Australia’s Future to 2063. Australian Government. 2023. treasury.gov.au
- Australian Taxation Office. Corporate Tax Transparency Report 2023–24. Australian Government. 2025. ato.gov.au
- Australian Treasury. 2025–26 Tax Expenditures and Insights Statement. Australian Government. 2025. treasury.gov.au
- Australian Taxation Office. Report of Entity Tax Information. Australian Government. 2026. ato.gov.au
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Supermarkets Inquiry 2024–25: Final Report. Australian Government. 2025. accc.gov.au
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Supermarkets Inquiry Summary. Australian Government. 2025. accc.gov.au
- Australian Taxation Office. Company Tax Rates. Australian Government. 2025. ato.gov.au
- Fair Work Ombudsman. Annual Report 2024–25. Australian Government. 2025. fairwork.gov.au
- Australian Treasury. Treasury Laws Amendment (Taxation and Multinational Global and Domestic Minimum Tax) Bill 2024: Explanatory Memorandum. Australian Government. 2024. treasury.gov.au
- Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Annual Report 2024–25. Australian Government. 2025. download.asic.gov.au
- Productivity Commission. Creating a More Dynamic and Resilient Economy: Inquiry Report. Australian Government. 2025. assets.pc.gov.au
- Companies House and Department for Business and Trade. Companies House Begins Phased Roll Out of New Powers to Tackle Fraud. United Kingdom Government. 2024. gov.uk
- Australian Securities and Investments Commission. REP 829: ASIC Enforcement and Regulatory Update, July to December 2025. Australian Government. 2026. download.asic.gov.au
- Productivity Commission. Creating a More Dynamic and Resilient Economy: Interim Report. Australian Government. 2025. assets.pc.gov.au
- OECD. Global Anti-Base Erosion Model Rules (Pillar Two). OECD Publishing. 2021. oecd.org
- New Zealand Tax Working Group. Future of Tax: Final Report, Volume I – Recommendations. New Zealand Government. 2019. taxworkinggroup.govt.nz
- United States Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission. 2023 Merger Guidelines. United States Government. 2023. justice.gov
- The Australia Institute. Supermarkets or Super Mark-ups? Submission to the ACCC Supermarkets Inquiry. The Australia Institute. 2024. australiainstitute.org.au
- Australian Council of Trade Unions. Inquiry into Price Gouging: Report. ACTU. 2024. pricegouginginquiry.actu.org.au
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