Liabilities recorded on the balance sheets of major banks are to be disregarded, at least in the context of assessing a controversial new tax, or so those banks told Treasury yesterday.  Four of five affected banks released submissions to Treasury yesterday on the liability levy outlined in last week's federal budget. In the submissions, major banks set out to narrow the definition of liabilities covered by the bank levy, and also to widen the scope of affected banks to include foreign giants operating in Australia.The bank and the lobby group, the Australian Bankers Association, hope to enmesh the Treasury in sufficient uncertainty over design and detail of the new levy that the rushed timetable to enact the new tax may be reconsidered. As things stand draft legislation will be available tomorrow (Wednesday, 17 May) with banks allowed only one more day to respond. The government wants to introduce a bill to parliament by the end of May, with the tax applied from 1 July 2017.As scoped by Treasury for last week's budget, the levy will apply to authorised deposit taking institutions with licensed entity liabilities of at least A$100 billion; in practice the four major banks as well as, probably, Macquarie.The levy is proposed to apply, at the rate of 0.06 per cent, to liabilities of the licensed ADIs, including those of their offshore branches. It will not apply to liabilities of subsidiaries. There are exclusions for additional tier one capital and deposits protected by the Financial Claims Scheme. The disconcerting nature of the proposed tax is a feature of some of the bank submissions. Ian Narev, chief executive of Commonwealth Bank wrote that "the levy will be a significant part of the infrastructure of the Australian banking system. "It is critical that all participants in the banking system have an opportunity to contribute to its good design and implementation, in order to ensure the least possible risk of damaging the system's stability."This frustration continued on the submission of Anna Bligh, chief executive of the Australian Bankers Association, who said the ABA was "alarmed with the truncated time for consultation, as well as the fact there was no prior consultation, nor will exposure draft legislation be released for public comment. "The ABA believes there is further opportunity for consultation as the tax will only be levied for the first time on 30 September 2017."The four banks' submissions take a predictably technocratic tone and even quibble over the availability of - let alone the suitability of - a current report sent into APRA on which any bank might frame assessment of the tax.The submission from Westpac, in the name of its chief financial officer Peter King, surveys main points common to the submissions of all four banks.At the head of the wish list, King emphasised that "large multinational foreign banks should be included, so as to avoid Australian banks being at a competitive disadvantage in the Australian market to globally active foreign banks."King then produced list of select liabilities Westpac wanted