Optus among companies earning billions in Australia but paying no income tax

The Guardian reports on the latest corporate transparency report from the Australian Taxation Office, revealing a string of mostly multinational firms which continue to pay no or very little tax on income in Australia, including household names such as Netflix, Apple and Microsoft.

Singapore Telecom, the locally registered owner of Optus, earned $8.2bn in 2023-24, but reported zero taxable income and paid no tax on that, the ATO data showed.

Tax minimisation was most evident among multinational firms, but wasn’t only the domain of hi-tech firms.

The Brazilian-owned JBS Global Meat Holdings earned $19.7bn in Australia in 2023-24 – putting it just inside the top 20 businesses by income.

But it paid zero tax on that income.

The story is also covered in InnovationAus.com here

Jason Ward, a principal analyst at the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (Cictar), said while the ATO was one of the best in the world at getting multinationals to pay their fair share of tax, the latest report showed there was still a long way to go.

“Generally most Australian companies do the right thing and are relatively decent taxpayers,” Ward said.

“Most of the abuse we see comes from the big multinationals, and big US multinationals in particular. A big exception to that is CSL.”

The blood-based medicines firm – a champion of Australian industry – earned $5.2bn in 2023-24, reported taxable income of just $253m, and paid no tax – and not for the first time, Ward said.