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Industry segment

Last updated 4 December 2018

Australia’s largest corporations tend to operate in sectors of the economy that are characterised by a high degree of capital intensity and economies of scale. Different economic performance factors affect particular sectors of the economy at different points in the economic cycle. In particular, these cyclical factors have influenced the tax performance of the energy and resources segment in recent years.

Tax payable was dominated by the banking and finance segment in 2015–16. The broader sales and services segment accounted for the second largest share of tax payable, albeit from a significantly larger number of companies, while manufacturing had a low share of tax payable relative to the number of companies operating in this industry. The share of tax payable attributable to energy and resources was lower than in previous years.

Figure 9: Corporate entities, by industry segment, 2015–16

Entities in the population are grouped into five industry segments. This figure shows the number of corporate entities in each industry segment, the number with positive taxable income and tax payable amounts, and the amount of tax payable. In 2015–16, the banking and finance segment contributed by far the most amount of tax payable with only a small number of entities, and also performed well in terms of the proportion of entities that had taxable income and tax payable amounts. The sales and service segment represented the largest segment of the population by count, and contributed the second largest share of tax payable after banking and finance. This was followed by energy and resources, manufacturing and insurance and superannuation (excluding superfunds) in terms of tax payable.

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