In the Detail
Topic

Tax

2 investigations.

Tax

Australia's Company-Tax Bill More Than Doubled in a Decade. The Big Four Banks Paid Almost Exactly the Same.

In 2013-14 the four major banks paid $9.5 billion in company tax — about a quarter of everything the ATO's large-company transparency data records. Ten years on they paid $10.0 billion: a fifth less in real terms, while the total climbed to $96 billion. Their share of the base more than halved. What grew in their place is the resources sector, whose tax swings with the iron ore and gas price.

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Negative gearing

Cheap Money Nearly Switched Off Negative Gearing. The Rate Rise Switched It Back On.

In 2021–22, with the cash rate at a record-low 0.10%, the share of Australian landlords reporting a rental loss fell to 41.9% — the lowest in a quarter-century of tax records — and their combined losses shrank to $5.98 billion. Two years later, after the Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate to 4.35%, 1.27 million landlords were negatively geared again, within 4.4% of its 2017–18 peak, and their losses had jumped to $15.22 billion. No tax law changed in between.

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