The resources sector has been confirmed as Australia’s biggest taxpayer, with the ATO Corporate Tax Transparency Report underlining industry’s outsized contribution to funding essential services like health, education and social security.
The Australian mining industry paid $43.1 billion in company tax in 2022-23, with oil and gas producers contributing an additional $11.6 billion.
Combined, the resources sector was responsible for well over half ($54.7 billion) of the total $97.9 billion in income tax paid by large corporations in 2022-23.
Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA Chief Executive Officer Rebecca Tomkinson highlighted CME members operating in WA featured prominently on the list of Australia’s highest corporate taxpayers.
“WA’s resources sector is the engine room of both the State and national economies, providing tens of thousands of jobs and pouring billions of dollars into essential government services,” Ms Tomkinson said.
“Taxes paid by the oil and gas sector increased more than tenfold from $1.5 billion in 2021-22 to $11.6 billion in 2022-23, reflecting major projects moving further into their production cycles.”
CME members BHP ($7.4 billion), Rio Tinto ($5.8 billion), Chevron ($4.3 billion), Fortescue ($3.5 billion), Woodside ($2.7 billion), Shell (1.6 billion), Roy Hill ($1.2 billion), Mitsui ($1 billion), Hancock Prospecting ($930 million) Pilbara Minerals ($883 million) and BP ($698 million) all ranked among the top 30 highest corporate taxpayers in 2022-23.
Ms Tomkinson said separate CME analysis found the WA resources sector contributed 9 per cent of national GDP in 2022-23, accounting for more than 744,000 direct and indirect jobs and nearly two-thirds of national resources exports.
“Over the past eight years, corporate taxes paid by the resources sector have increased an incredible fivefold,” Ms Tomkinson said.
“Those taxes – along with royalties – fund everything from schools and hospitals to Medicare, aged care and the NDIS,” Ms Tomkinson said.
In its own statement, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) highlighted that 2022-23 was the second consecutive year in which the mining sector paid more corporate tax than all other sectors combined.
Media contacts:
Josh Zimmerman j.zimmerman@cmewa.com / 0404 947 719
Natasha Mutch n.mutch@cmewa.com / 0435 383 382
