In the fiscal year 2021-22, the Australian Taxation Office disclosed that over 800 major corporations did not pay any taxes.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has released its ninth corporate tax transparency report, which encompasses 2,713 corporate entities and sheds light on the tax payments of major companies in the fiscal year 2021-22. Within this group, a staggering 831 companies, equivalent to 31 percent, did not contribute any taxes.

Several factors were cited as reasons for these corporations paying no taxes, including recording an accounting loss or utilizing tax offsets that effectively reduced their tax liability to zero. The ATO report notes that this proportion of companies reporting nil tax payments aligns with ASX data, which indicates that approximately 20 to 30 percent of ASX 500 companies report net losses to their shareholders in any given year.

In the 2021-22 report, data from 2,713 entities is presented, representing an increase of 245 entities. Collectively, these companies paid a total of $83.8 billion in income tax. This figure marks a substantial increase of $15.2 billion, or 22 percent, compared to the previous year, and nearly a 50 percent surge over a two-year span, primarily due to the strong performance of the mining sector driven by soaring commodity prices.

Rebecca Saint, the ATO deputy commissioner, emphasized that this notable increase in tax revenue was largely attributed to the mining industry’s robust performance.