Australia’s state coffers have seen a record-high tax haul from the oil industry following amendments to tax legislation that companies used to claim higher costs and lower taxes.
For fiscal 2022-23, the Australian Tax Office received A$11.6 billion in tax payments from the oil and gas industry, which is equal to some $7.62 billion. That was up from a much more modest A$1.5 billion for fiscal 2021-22.
Some companies, including Woodside and Exxon, had not paid any taxes in the fiscal 2021-2022 but after the legislative changes coughed up billions in taxes in the latest fiscal year. For Exxon, the tax bill was A$844.5 million on revenues of A$25.7 billion in revenues. For Woodside, the tax bill was A$2.7 billion on revenues totaling A$24 billion.
The Australian Tax Office said that of the total A$11.6 billion in tax revenues from the oil industry, A$4.3 billion, or $2.8 billion, was the direct result of legislative reforms to improve tax collection from the industry. However, the 2022-23 season was the peak, according to the ATO, as the industry cycle is in its downward stage.
Australia’s government went after oil and gas majors in 2016, after then-Treasurer Scott Morrison said that revenues from the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) had halved since 2013, reaching around $525 million (A$800 million) and that excise revenues have also fallen drastically.
The federal government launched an investigation into the industry that led to a report by the country’s Auditor-General revealing that the operators of just one oil and gas project – the biggest one, admittedly – had seen their way out of paying around $3.3 billion (A$5 billion) in taxes by using various deductions, some of them ineligible. The operators in question include Chevron, Shell, BP, and Australia’s biggest independent oil and gas company, Woodside, along with BHP Billiton.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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