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On December 14, 2019, the Australian Greens posted a claim to their Facebook feed about taxes paid by individuals and various entities.

The claim is in the image on this page, but essentially the claims are:

  • That the following organisations paid 0 tax:

    • Sydney airport
    • Transurban
    • Pratt holding visy recycling

  • These types of people paid tax:

    • Baggage handler: $7,872
    • Nurse earning $58,000 paid $10,397
    • Factory worker: $7,685

Claims about amount paid

jwodder
  • 494
  • 2
  • 9
  • 13
user1605665
  • 6,751
  • 6
  • 27
  • 48
  • 3
    Companies generally pay taxes on profits not turnover. It is entirely possible that all three companies have made a loss. – Paul Johnson Dec 16 '19 at 13:20
  • @PaulJohnson As a non native speaker: what does the word “income” used on the sign mean for companies? – Hartmut Braun Dec 16 '19 at 14:31
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    It means the amount of money that they have taken in, also known as "revenue". From this they will pay rent, wages, buy stock etc. These are their costs. Very roughly, profit = income - costs. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/profit.asp – Paul Johnson Dec 16 '19 at 15:07
  • @HartmutBraun On the other hand, this page says different. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/income.asp – Paul Johnson Dec 16 '19 at 15:09
  • @PaulJohnson thanks for pointing at both possibilities. – Hartmut Braun Dec 16 '19 at 15:39
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    I've just been digging through the Sydney Airport annual report. It shows revenue as A$1,584.9M, which is pretty close to the $1.55B in the graphic, so they are calling revenue "income". Page 92 of the report shows a charge for income tax of 62.5M, so it looks like they are paying quite a lot of tax. However P122-124 talks about the airport being part of a larger structure for tax purposes, and that larger structure has made an overall loss, so that (if I understand correctly) has swallowed up the Sydney Airport taxes. – Paul Johnson Dec 16 '19 at 15:44
  • That seems weird. One company can't reclaim tax paid by another company, even if they own it. Could you link to the report? – DJClayworth Dec 18 '19 at 15:54
  • The comment making reference to GST makes this very disingenuous, since the graphic only refers to company and income taxes. If we are bringing other taxes into it, these companies are probably all paying payroll tax, and possibly land tax as well. – Jack Dec 20 '19 at 01:19
  • I'm pretty sure the Greens actually included a link to references, including original data from the Australian Tax Office (there were a lot of companies that paid zero tax) and analysis from a think tank (Australia Institute from memory). This is also a comment on the larger problem with companies dodging tax with creative accounting. – Tim Scanlon Dec 21 '19 at 02:32
  • @DJClayworth I think the logic is like this: suppose I have two shops, one makes a loss and the other a profit. Overall I make a small loss, so I pay no tax. I split the two shops into separate businesses to protect the profitable one, but now I have to pay tax on the the profitable one. By linking the two for tax purposes I can still protect the profitable shop without being penalised by the tax man. – Paul Johnson Dec 21 '19 at 10:56
  • @DJClayworth Link is: https://www.sydneyairport.com.au/investor/investors-centre/reports/annual-reports – Paul Johnson Dec 21 '19 at 10:57

0 Answers0