Swagman wrote on Mar 11
th, 2018 at 11:27am:
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Quote:They’re sick of one-third of big businesses not paying tax.
.....how much tax does the ACTU pay?
Good question big S guy.
Unions: fantastic tax-free businesses protected by law
Here’s some uplifting news that could make your weekend.
Despite all the doom and gloom — falling wages in real terms, falling private investment, falling consumer confidence, falling retail spending, rising energy costs, higher taxes and a federal government that has gone loco, expanding itself and spending like mad — some businesses are doing rather well.
At Workplace Express, an online industrial relations news service, there recently was an article about two unions experiencing such marvellous trading conditions, they’ve expanded into better buildings.
Named after Joseph Stalin in 1925, Stalingrad (now known as Volgograd), was regarded as the industrial capital of communist Russia. In Australia’s deep south, Stalingrad’s virtual sister city, Melbourne — or “Melbournegrad”, as it is referred to in our household — remains the industrial relations capital of Australia and the core stronghold of the union movement.
In this city, despite being sued, prosecuted and fined with monotonous regularity, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (construction and general division) recently sold its building at 500 Swanston Street for $27 million to continue its merry climb up the prestige property ladder. Its 2016 financials say the CFMEU has 25,211 members, annual revenue of about $31m and spent $5m on legal fees and costs. The group has net assets of $58m. After the sale completes, the CFMEU will move to 532-540 Elizabeth Street, a building it purchased for $30m. This building was bought off another union, which sold it to move to a new home purchased for $68m.
According to the figures released last month, union membership density in the private sector is sitting at 10.4 per cent, the lowest it has been in our nation’s history. Despite having — on paper — fewer clients than ever, unions are going from strength to strength.
In fact, just on the data available, as a group, union bosses could be Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs; financial miracle workers, creating wealth out of thin air, and the best business managers in the country.
Of course, unions enjoy two stunning advantages created for them by a past Labor government. I’m not sure what these grand “reforms” did for the rest of us but the introduction of enterprise bargaining and compulsory national superannuation put unions on the path to stratospheric wealth and power.
Thanks to enterprise bargaining and superannuation, unions don’t need workers to join unions, they only need employers to make superannuation contributions and enter into bargaining arrangements where the union takes an income stream.
History has shown that if unions wish, they can operate above the law with almost complete impunity. As well, they can misuse their position in enterprise bargaining processes to secure alternative revenue streams, harvested from the business they are dealing with, which becomes the union’s client.
For example, a union can have an employer pay income protection insurance premiums for all employees to a union-owned insurance business or an insurance business that simply pays the union a kickback.
In the past, the details of these arrangements have not been disclosed to workers, and the insurance has been priced at an exorbitant level for a substandard product.
Recent reforms in this area, introduced by the Coalition, mean full disclosure must now be made and the product must be charged at commercial rates.
However, given the ease with which unions and employers collude to scam workers and seem to get away with it, I remain sceptical that the reforms will prevent unethical conduct and thwart unions and employers from colluding to benefit each other and rip the workers off.
Industry superannuation funds continue to grow in wealth and power, too, completely unabated. Industry funds own stakes in buildings that various governments rent. Malcolm Turnbull has offices in Sydney, rented in a building part-owned by CBUS, the CFMEU’s super fund. Basically, our Prime Minister is a tenant where the CFMEU is one of the landlords.
In Queensland, the state government resides in a $653m, 43-storey office tower, built by CBUS Property. This arrangement was put in place in the first year of the previous Liberal government. Just why past premier Campbell Newman chose CBUS over several other builders who tendered remains one of the great mysteries of the universe.
On top of all that, the revenue raised by doing whatever it is unions do now remains
tax-exempt.
Unions are simply businesses. Imagine operating a business with a captive market created by a legal framework set up to ensure you succeed, without having to pay federal taxes — it would be impossible to fail, wouldn’t it?
On that note — and this suggestion will fall on deaf Canberra ears, given the government seems to love whacking taxes on all and sundry, especially the hardest working and most valuable in the economy — isn’t it past time we taxed all “registered industrial organisations”, unions and employer groups?
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/unions-fantastic-taxfree-business...