ExxonMobil Australia chairman Richard Owen arrives for a meeting in Parliament House in Canberra in 2017.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Senator Patrick said over eight years ExxonMobil will have paid less income tax than millions of taxpayers,despite the business using Australia's social infrastructure – paid for by people who do pay tax.
"Richard James Owen is a shameless corporate tax dodger. He should be called out for what he is. Behind a veneer of professional respectability,he's a hypocrite and a corporate scumbag,"Senator Patrick said in the Senate under parliamentary privilege.
Senator Patrick said ExxonMobil Australia was the largest supplier to Australia's domestic gas market. Mr Owen previously told a Senate hearing the reason the company wasn't paying corporate tax was because it was investing $21 billion in new infrastructure.
But Senator Patrick questioned why ExxonMobil Australia was owned by companies registered in the Netherlands,the Bahamas and the US state of Delaware – jurisdictions popular with companies that have a record of paying little or no tax.
"Exxon has denied these opaque arrangements had any impact on tax paid in Australia,but the company has failed to explain the purpose of those tax haven shell companies and why those arrangements were put in place,"he said.
The use of shell companies does not breach Australian tax law. Mr Owen in 2018 said the company had historically been a corporate taxpayer and expected to return to paying corporate tax from 2021.