AWB, the Australian wheat firm at the centre of a multi million dollar kickback scandal involving Saddam Hussein, has more problems. They are likely to be subject to a tax inspection.
Australian tax commissioner, Michael D'Ascenzo, has released the office's compliance program for 2006-2007.
In the document is the phrase:
"We will check systems to ensure bribes and facilitation payments are not wrongly claimed as tax deductions."
In the Cole inquiry earlier this year an AWB financial officer, Paul Ingleby, said that the company had claimed up to $300M in kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein as a tax write-off.
Ingleby alleged that the payment of "trucking fees", kickbacks demanded by Saddam, was treated by AWB as an expense and therefore a tax deduction.
The tax office will review significant, one-off, regular or embedded payments by Australian firms in "jurisdictions where bribes or facilitation payments are said to be part of doing business".
What goes around, comes around.
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