There are 2,214 corporate entities in the 2017–18 corporate transparency population, with tax payable of $52.3 billion. Compared to 2016–17, this represents a net increase of 105 entities (5.0%) and an increase in tax payable of $6.6 billion (14.5%).
The significant increase in tax payable was primarily driven by the mining, energy and water segment; this is a reflection of strong commodity prices, which were up 15% in Australian dollar terms in 2017–18. The commodity prices were sourced from the Reserve Bank of Australia (XLS 192KB)This link will download a file.
Results were relatively steady among other industry segments (Figure 1) and is consistent with the change in the number of entities within each segment.
Figure 1: Change in tax payable, by industry segment, 2017–18
Tax payable again increased across all three ownership segments. Foreign-owned entities contributed the most to the increase ($3.8 billion) followed by Australian public entities ($2.4 billion) and Australian private entities ($463 million) (Figure 2).
The significant increase of tax payable by foreign-owned entities was partly attributed to an increase in the number of entities (66) in this ownership segment.
Figure 2: Change in tax payable, by ownership segment, 2017–18