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Energy and Resources Working Group key messages 11 November 2025

Key topics discussed at the Energy and Resources Working Group meeting 11 November 2025.

Last updated 18 March 2026

Findings reports

The ATO highlighted the release of several findings reports on engaging with large corporates − 2025 insights, including:

  • The Top 100 findings reports highlight that the assurance ratings for taxpayers in the Mining, Energy and Water (MEW) segment are consistent with those of the broader Top 100 population.
  • The Top 1,000 assurance ratings for the Mining, Energy and Water (MIN) are consistent with those of the wider Top 1,000 population.
  • The number of requests received in 2024–25 for advice and guidance products was approximately 9% higher than in 2023–24. Private ruling requests have remained relatively stable this year after a substantial increase in 2023–24. Early engagement requests increased after several years of sustained declines.
  • Our compliance activities in respect of public and multinational businesses continue to raise significant liabilities, specifically
    • we raised $4.11 billion in total income tax liabilities during 2024–25, was made up of $2.62 billion in tax liabilities, $331 million in interest and $1.16 billion in penalties.
    • around $385 million in total GST liabilities raised during 2024–25, made up of $359 million in tax liabilities, $14 million in interest and $12 million in penalties.
    • global profit shifting continues to be a major focus in our disputes. Transfer pricing is the most relevant event attracting our attention, where well understood issues of financing and marketing hub arrangements continue to be in focus.

Association of mining and exploration companies

State of the market shows gold price is up 55% in AUD year on year. Gold total mineral exploration rose last quarter by 36%. Iron ore steady above AUD $100. Lithium prices are down from USD $80,000 in 2022 to USD $9,000 in 2025.

Finance inflows (BDO June quarterly report) shows rebound in financing inflows in June 2025, which rose by 20% to $1.89 billion. The key to productivity is unlocking reductions to duplication and cost through the commonwealth environmental reforms:

  • bilateral agreements need to work and need to be prioritised to happen soon
  • fixing the unacceptable impacts test so that it does not penalise greenfield development.

Minerals Council of Australia

Mining makes an unprecedented contribution to Australia including:

  • Gross domestic product contribution – mining industry contributed $2.6 trillion over the decade 2014–15 to 2023–24.
  • Royalties and taxes – mining companies paid $394.6 billion over the decade 2014–15 to 2023–24.
  • Mineral exploration – private expenditure worth $27 billion over the decade 2014–15 to 2023–24.
  • Export earnings – minerals exports worth $2.9 trillion over the decade 2014–15 to 2023–24.
  • Direct employment – people in the mining sector 284,800 average across the financial year 2023–24.
  • Mineral exploration – private expenditure worth $27 billion over the decade 2014–15 to 2023–24.
  • Investment – mining industry spent $242 billion over the decade 2014–15 to 2023–24.

Top 5 investment deterrents facing Australia mining companies in 2024 are regulatory duplication, uncertainty over which areas will be protected, taxation regime, uncertainty over disputed land claims and availability of labour and skills.

The Critical Mineral Production Tax Incentive (CMPTI) is an important step towards both adding value to Australia’s existing resource sector and establishing secure supply chains for minerals that will be critical for enabling future technologies and decarbonisation globally. Policy concerns include the requirement to comply with ‘community benefit principles’ risks creating duplicative and unnecessary hurdles for critical mineral projects.

Under the Junior Minerals Exploration Incentive scheme (JMEI), new equity investors are provided with a tax credit equivalent to the expenditure made by the company. Policy recommendation is to reinstate the JMEI a make it a permanent and ongoing scheme.

Australian Energy Producers

The ATO’s corporate transparency data is invaluable to promoting informed debates about industry tax contributions.

Capital deepening is vital to lifting Australia’s sluggish productivity performance.

Stable and internationally competitive tax settings are essential to attracting investment in capital-intensive, long-lived projects.

Australian Energy Producers (AEP) members have nominated policy uncertainty and approval delays, and unmeritorious post-approval challenges as significant barriers to additional investment.

AEP has proposed that the Australian Government adopt a ‘regulation for growth’ approach like that of the United Kingdom.

In our submission to the Gas Market Review, AEP recommended establishing a prospective east-coast reservation policy linked to new supply.

Pillar Two and Domestic Minimum Tax

Legislation passed December 2024. The global and domestic minimum tax comprises of the Income Inclusion Rule (IIR) and the Undertaxed Profits Rule (UTPR).

Reporting obligations commence 30 June 2026. There are 4 new lodgment requirements that have been introduced as part of the global anti-base erosion model (GloBE) rules. These are:

  • GloBE Information Return (GIR).
  • Foreign lodgment notification.
  • Australian IIR/UTPR tax return.
  • Australian domestic minimum tax, tax return.

The ATO released 2 public advice guidance products:

  • Taxation Ruling TR 2006/11 Private rulings
  • Practical Compliance Guideline PCG 2025/D3 Global and domestic minimum tax lodgment obligations transitional approach

There are 4 safe harbours offering different degrees of compliance simplification for taxpayers:

  • Transitional country by country reporting safe harbour.
  • The transitional UTPR safe harbour.
  • The qualified domestic minimum top up tax safe harbour.
  • Non-material constituent entity simplified calculation safe harbour.

Australia’s existing penalty regime will apply to Pillar Two obligations. Failure to lodge penalties may apply, and these could have a significant financial impact. Application of penalties will be consistent with the Organisation for Economic co-operation and Development transitional penalty relief approach. Record keeping obligations under the Assessment Bill require constituent entities to keep records for 8 years.

Our compliance approach seeks to ensure that taxpayers understand their obligations. We will be taking a risk-based approach during the transition period, until 30 June 2027. This means engaging with taxpayers to understand their tax affairs. We will not be applying a justified trust or assurance-based approach during the transition period.

For more information about our Pillar Two project, visit www.ato.gov.au/pillar2 or email Pillar2Project@ato.gov.au for the project team.

Petroleum resources rent tax

Due to the commencement of the deductions cap in the 2024 year, the number of entities paying petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) has increased from 11 to 16. PRRT payable though decreased from $1,867.1 million to $1,483.3 million for 2023–24. Our latest published estimates show a PRRT gap of 2.7% or $51 million. This means that we expect to collect around 97% of PRRT that should be paid.

The introduction of the PRRT deductions cap has raised several practical issues for industry. The main one being the difficulty obtaining timely cost information for calculating the residual price method under the Regulation. Under the tax laws the Commissioner of Taxation has a discretion to defer lodgment of a return but not the payment of tax. To assist the PRRT taxpayers subject to this measure, we have done the following:

  • On application we have permitted lodgment deferrals of annual returns.
  • Through consultation, provided guidance on the calculation of an estimate of the annual tax payable to facilitate taxpayers’ payment obligations.
  • Clarified the application of the administrative penalty and interest regime to this situation, including our approach to non-operator project members.
  • Clarified that the instalment statements lodged by deductions cap taxpayers does not require all cost information labels to be populated, only the 'augmented denied deductible expenditure' at Label 16Z.

Reportable tax position

This is the sixth year we are publishing insights from the Reportable tax position (RTP) schedule – category C disclosures.

Public and multinational business lodgments

The following highlights consider disclosures for the public and multinational business (PMB) market that includes all public and multinational businesses and exclude:

  • disclosures for private companies
  • disclosures against questions not active in the 2023–24 RTP schedule.

In 2024 there were over 1,450 lodgments made by PMB entities with disclosures made, and a further 580 lodgments with no disclosures made or category A/B disclosures only.

There was a 38% increase in lodgments with a category C disclosure made over the 4 years from 2021 to 2024.

Disclosures

There were over 4,800 disclosures made by PMB entities in 2024. This has more than doubled over the 4 years from 2,294 disclosures in 2021.

Corporate tax transparency

Following a change in the tax law in 2022, this is the second year that the tax payable – by industry segment in the corporate tax transparency report 2023–24 (CTT) has data on Australian-owned private companies with total income between $100 million and $200 million published.

As in previous reports, MEW outperformed other segments of the economy. The MEW industry segment make up only 8.3% of the CTT population, but account for the:

  • highest taxable income – 49.2% of the total
  • highest tax payable – 50.7% of the total
  • largest proportion of nil tax paid.

The introduction of the PRRT deductions cap has resulted in more taxpayers paying PRRT, but overall collections are down.

For 2023–24 the total PRRT payable was $1,483.3 million. The number of entities paying PRRT increased by 5 from the previous year and PRRT payable decreased from $1,867.1 million in 2022–23.

The decrease in PRRT payable reflects the lower profitability of PRRT-liable companies in 2023–24, with oil prices, decreasing production in longstanding projects and increased costs being the key drivers.

Production tax incentives

Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR), Clean Energy Regulator (CER), ATO and Treasury provided updates on the current state of the production tax incentives.

DISR

The Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive (CMPTI) provides a 10% refundable tax offset on eligible processing expenditure for critical minerals processed in Australia. The CMPTI offset is claimable for up to 10 years from 1 July 2027 to 30 June 2040. Policy objective is to incentivise processing and refining critical minerals in Australia.

The CMPTI is co-administered between the ATO and DISR. Companies will register their eligible processing activities with DISR and provide annual reports to DISR to maintain registration. Companies will claim the incentive in their tax returns, which are assessed by the ATO.

DISR will develop public-facing guidance materials in 2026. More information refer to Critical Minerals Prodiction Tax IncentiveExternal Link or email DISR CMPTI@industry.gov.au.

CER

Hydrogen Production Tax Incentive (HPTI) is a refundable tax offset of $2 per kilogram of eligible hydrogen produced. CER and ATO will jointly administer the HPTI. The HPTI will be underpinned by the Guarantee of Origin (GO) scheme, which provides the trusted emissions data needed to support the tax offset.

The Product Guarantee of Origin (PGO) certificates will show the emissions associated with the production, storage and transport of the product, and will be publicly available on the GO register.

The GO register promotes transparency by publishing detailed information about participants, their profile and facility data, and their certificates. This information helps build trust in the integrity of the scheme and supports informed decision-making across domestic and international markets. The GO scheme and the GO register will be administered by the CER. The ATO will be responsible for processing HPTI claims.

Treasury

Treasury updated the group of the CMPTI draft regulations having closed, regulations are yet to be finalised. The government announced consultation on the Community Benefit Principles (CBPs) work, prior to the election, the timing and nature of any consultation is a decision for government. The responsibility for the non-tax CBPs was transferred to DISR under the Administrative Arrangement Orders in May 2025.

Future made in Australia subcommittee

The primary objective is to work collaboratively to identify areas that present challenges for industry and may warrant the development of guidance material. The aim is to increase certainty and make compliance easier for industry participants.

The subcommittee plans to meet early next year to initiate dialogue, establish a work program, and discuss expectations around participation and input, ensuring the subcommittee operates as effectively as possible.

Decommissioning

Australia’s offshore oil and gas industry faces a significant decommissioning liability over the next 50 years, with approximately half of the decommissioning liability occurring in the next 10 years.

AEP has been working with the DISR and other government agencies to establish a sustainable decommissioning framework for Australia, including a national decommissioning Financial Assurance Framework.

AEP has recently developed an industry-endorsed framework based on the well-established and well-tested United Kingdom approach.

In June 2025, the ATO circulated a decommissioning discussion paper to facilitate a technical discussion between the ATO and the decommissioning subcommittee. The paper considers:

  • the tax treatment of the financial assurance regime, including asking for details of the types of structures or instruments that the external parties thought would be relevant to that process
  • the effect of the trailing liability regime, on tax outcomes.

The ATO’s current focus is on analysing each submission received in response to the paper. We intend to initiate contact with the subcommittee early in the new year and where necessary directly with those who provided a submission, regarding points needing clarifications within their submission.

Attendees

Attendees list

Organisation

Attendee

ATO

Michelle Sams (Chair), Public Groups

ATO

Adam Peel, Internation Support and Programs

ATO

Antony Faisandier, Office of the Chief Tax Counsel

ATO

David Stevenson, Public Groups

ATO

Jane Snowden, Public Groups

ATO

Louise Andolfatto, International Support and Programs

ATO

Matthew Persse, Public Groups

ATO

Michael Ingersoll, Public Groups

ATO

Nat Chirathamjaree, Public Groups

ATO

Shilam Singh, Public Groups

ATO

Suzie Emery, Public Groups

Association of Mining and Exploration Companies

David Ocello

Association of Mining and Exploration Companies

Neil van Drunen

Australian Energy Producers

Jeremy Hams

Australian Energy Producers

Matthew Steen

Australian Energy Producers

Michael Fenner

Clean Energy Regulator

Casey Broughton

Clean Energy Regulator

Jane Wardlaw

Department of Industry, Science and Energy

David Bennett

Department of Industry, Science and Resources

Brenda Wee

DLA Piper

June Au

Energy and Resources Law

Nick Heggart

EY

Jaime Hayes

KPMG

Carlo Franchina

Minerals Council of Australia

Greg Singh

Minerals Council of Australia

Premila Roe

Minerals Council of Australia

Ross Lyons

Minerals Council of Australia

Will Lawrence

The Tax Institute

Catherine Dean

Treasury

Matthew Mcrae

Apologies

Apologies list

Organisation

Member

ATO

Stan Spasojevic, Public Groups

Association of Mining and Exploration Companies

Warren Pearce

Deloitte

Jonahtan Schneider

Department of Industry, Science and Resources

Joshua Reakes

Institute of Public Accountants

Lance Cunningham

Treasury

Simon Winckler

QC106255