Top taxpayers paid more than $20bn in tax: Report

This is the fourth year the ATO has published its report for the Top 1,000 assurance program for income tax and the second year it has included insights from the Top 1,000 goods and services tax (GST) assurance program.

The report explained how the ATO applies the justified trust methodology to obtain greater assurance that large public and multinational taxpayers are paying the right amount of income tax or GST and identified areas of tax risk for further action.

For this tax year, the report revealed that the 10 largest groups in the Top 1,000 population paid $3 billion or 15 per cent of the Top 1,000 company tax and the 100 largest groups in the Top 1,000 population paid $11.5 billion or 56 per cent of the Top 1,000 company tax.

The Top 1,000 taxpayers reported $24.1 billion of net GST or 36 per cent of total GST collections.

Top 1,000 taxpayers are initially identified as members of large public and multinational corporate groups with a group turnover greater than $250 million and not covered by the Top 100 Program. They are diverse in terms of their ownership, business models, industries and size.

The ATO explained that as Top 1,000 taxpayers can have a significant impact on the health of the Australian tax system, it engages with them on a periodic basis to manage their compliance and assure their tax performance.

Where the economic group has more than one taxpayer, the ATO usually reviews the taxpayer with turnover above $250 million for income tax and the largest GST group for GST.