German supermarket chain Aldi who is set to expand their house brand appliance and consumer electronics business turned over $6 Billion in Australia in 2014.
The Company whose performance and open reporting of profits
has left egg on the face of Wesfarmers chief executive Richard Goyder who recently
said Aldi’s tax affairs required a “good look” has recently submitted
documents to the Senate inquiry into tax avoidance.
What the documents have revealed is that Aldi unlike
Woolworths is delivering surging profits in its Australian business who are
working closely with several International and Australian based distributors to
expand their range of house branded appliances which according to Aldi
management “sell out” within hours of being ranged.
Last year the Company sold 10,000 55″ TV’s in 90
minutes, also popular are their food mixers and combination Sterling oven, range
hood and hotplate sets.
In a submission to the Senate inquiry into tax avoidance,
the notoriously publicity shy discount supermarket chain both defends its
behaviour on tax and reveals its profitability.
The company’s submission to the Senate charts its sales
growth from $3.14 billion in the 2010 calendar year through to fractionally
under $5 billion in the 2013 calendar year.
It reveals the company’s pre-tax profit more than doubled
over the same period from $121 million in 2010 to $261 million four years
later.
The figures show Aldi’s revenue and profit climbing strongly
each year. That has come as Aldi has expanded rapidly to establish a network of
373 stores in Queensland, NSW, ACT and Victoria now employing 9000 people.
The company uses the profit figures to justify its tax
position. It declares both its income tax expense, which is an accounting
assessment, as well as its actual income tax paid average more than 30 per cent
over the period. In one year, 2011, the company claims to have paid 34 per cent
income tax well above the 30 per cent corporate tax rate.
The figures are not produced as audited accounts so the
underlying assumptions are not entirely transparent but the submission is
signed by the company’s Australasian chief executive Tom Daunt.
Aldi Senate Submission Fairfax Media said that one of the
key focuses of the Senate inquiry is transfer pricing. Aldi informs the
committee that it does not hold any related party loans and does not pay
royalties or licence fees to international related parties.
About 1 per cent of its merchandise and services expenditure
is made to international related parties, it says.
“In summation, as evidenced above Aldi wishes to make
it explicitly clear that it does not engage in the inappropriate pricing of
international related party transactions for the purposes of artificially
reducing taxable profits in Australia,” it says.
The company also claims to have a “very open and
positive working relationship” with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).