The data shows technology giant Apple paid just over 74 million in tax in 2013-14, about 1 percent of its total taxable income of $6.1 billion.
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The historic release of individual tax data for 1539 of Australia’s largest public companies on Thursday revealed the country’s biggest and smallest taxpayers, providing surprises with the struggles of foreign-owned companies.
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An unprecedented government data dump on Thursday showed 579 businesses reported an annual turnover of more than $100 million but paid no company tax in the 2014 financial year. SABMiller generated no taxable income despite Aus$2bil (RM6.21bil) total earnings.
A blank cell means a company paid either zero (or less) in tax.
Successive governments have ordered a crackdown on corporate tax avoidance.
However, it’s harder to understand the case of the global IT and software giants, who pay tax in Australia, but not very much of it.
“Most large corporates, particularly domestic Australian companies, meet their tax obligations, notwithstanding that we do have some significant disputes with some of them”. News Corp’s investment arm, News Australia Investments, had revenues of $1 billion and a taxable income of $97 million, on which it paid tax of $4.2 million.
“Some companies could also respond in a policy sense, making clear that Australia isn’t such a great place to do business compared with other, more tax-competitive jurisdictions”.
“Some of these foreign-owned companies are overly aggressive in the way they structure their operations”, he said.
Among the foreign banks with Australian affiliates that paid no tax were J.P. Morgan Australia, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.
Australia’s tax commissioner, Chris Jordan, said the data, released under new transparency laws, would help boost public confidence in the tax system.
Advertising agency holding company Enero Group, parent of BMF and Naked, paid no tax on revenues of $146 million, while STW Group, which this week announced a merger with WPP, paid $1 million tax on revenues of $118 million and a taxable income of $34 million. Still, some of the country’s biggest corporate names paid none in the designated fiscal year- including Qantas Airways, which had income of A$14.9 billion but recorded a large loss as it wrote down the value of its fleet by billions of dollars and booked various types of restructuring charges.
Amaysim also paid no tax on its taxable income of $93,714 from $130 million in revenue, nor did NTT, with a taxable income of $733,412 off $141 million in total earnings.
“Large corporates now have to consider the impact of their tax information as a factor in managing their reputation with the markets, their shareholders, their consumers and in the Australian community”.
Separately, BHP Billiton paid $967.8 million in Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, which again was more than half of the $1.77 billion raised by the PRRT.
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Robb M. Stewart in Melbourne and Rebecca Thurlow in Sydney contributed to this article.
