This is the company which once claimed it owned the word “book”. It even pretended it was a “small company … not part of large group”. So you could be excused for thinking its financial statements are fiction.
What’s the scam? Same deal as Google, crying poor, pretending their revenue is a fraction of what it actually is, and raking profits offshore. Facebook Australia claims its revenue actually fell during pandemic year 2020, fell to a paltry $155m. But if you look at cashflows, they spiked higher to $747m. What also spiked was payments made by the Australian company to some other Facebook associate offshore for empty sky, sorry … “purchase of advertising inventory” of $559m.
Tax paid was a paltry $15m, but that was a tidy $15m more than Google paid last year, despite its $5.2bn in revenue. With Google and Facebook paying News Corp, Seven and Nine Entertainment cash at the direction of the Government and its bizarre media policy, expect no action by the Tax Office any time soon.
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.