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Income segment

Last updated 11 December 2019

While the corporate transparency population represents the largest entities operating in Australia, the majority of tax payable is accounted for by a small number of very large entities.

Corporate entities with income of more than $5 billion represent only 2% of the corporate transparency population, but are liable for 53% ($27.9 billion) of the tax payable for the population (Figure 16). This share of tax payable has decreased slightly from 57% in the previous year. This represents a significant share of tax payable for an extremely small number of entities.

The entities with income between $250 million and $5 billion represent the largest portion (56%) of the corporate transparency population by count and also account for 41% of the tax payable.

Figure 16: Corporate entities by income segment, 2017–18

Entities in the population are grouped into three income range segments. This figure shows the number of entities with taxable income greater than zero, tax payable greater than zero, and the total about of tax paid in dollar terms. In 2017–18, a small number of entities – representing about 2% of the population – were in the $5 billion or more income segment, and reported $27.9 billion of tax payable, or 53% of the total. The majority of corporate entities fell into the $0.25 billion to $4.99 billion income segment, and these entities reported tax payable of $21.7 billion, or 41% of the total. The remainder of the population fell within the lower income segment (of between $0.1 billion and $0.249 billion) but reported a relatively small amount of tax payable.

Industry segment

Australia’s largest corporate entities 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 mining, energy and water segment in recent years.

Tax payable was dominated by the banking, finance and investment segment in 2017–18, followed very closely by the mining, energy and water segment. The share of tax payable attributable to the mining, energy and water segment was again higher than in previous years, primarily due to higher iron ore prices. The manufacturing, construction and agriculture segment had a low share of tax payable relative to the number of entities operating in this industry.

Figure 17: Corporate entities, by industry segment, 2017–18

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 2017–18, the banking, finance and investment segment contributed the highest 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. This was followed by the mining, energy and water segment with the second largest amount of tax payable, with a small number of entities. The wholesale, retail and services segment represented the largest segment of the population by count, and contributed the third largest share of tax payable. This was followed by manufacturing, construction and agriculture, then insurance in terms of tax payable.

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