Dear GrahamY,

Sorry mate but that is an excuse laden piece of tosh.

You say: “All of these companies would be paying tax as it is impossible to avoid GST, payroll tax etc, so there is your first problem.”

Not what we are discussing. However the GST figure would be less inputs so shouldn't be regarded as anywhere near 10%.

GY: “The ALP wanted to apply this to all mining and oil and gas companies.”

Nope, companies under 75 million profit from memory weren't liable.

GY:”I checked one of the companies - Santos. No tax last year, but the year before it paid at the rate of 33.8% and paid tax at similar rates every year before that to 2011 when my records stopped.”

Well that is both laughable and concerning you would think that is what landed in the tax office coffers.

“Ironically Santos, the most troubled player in the oil and gas sector, managed to pay more tax than Chevron, BG (Shell), Puma and Victoria Power. Between them, this bevy of foreign multinationals booked $33.4 billion in revenue and paid not a cent in tax over the four years of available Tax Office transparency data.
Santos racked up total income of almost $15 billion over the four years but, even on the measly $27 million which was left over in taxable income, it managed to pay income tax at a rate of just 11.5 per cent, just one third of the corporate rate. Just a touch over $3 million of its $14,938 thousand million total income.”
http://www.michaelwest.com.au/santos-limited-2019/

They still have around 1.5 billion dollars to offset so happy days.

And how is that royalty dividend going for you? 2019 had record production volumes but Santos paid only 3 million dollars on Product Sales of over 4 billion dollars.
http://www.santos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2020-Annual-Report.pdf

To paraphrase your good self 'When mainstream pundits react to these types of stories they are almost invariably dishonest. They know what the real situation is, but they want to feed the prejudices of their rightwing readers and feed the coffers of the LNP. '

Dear Hasbeen,

How's it going old cock?

As I said to Graham "2019 had record production volumes but Santos paid only 3 million dollars royalty on Product Sales of over 4 billion dollars.
http://www.santos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2020-Annual-Report.pdf"

Now you might happily be part of the cheer squad for these thieving multinational ripping us off blind, but some people have a little more nonce than you old boy. Personally I find willful ignorance like yours to be quite traitorous behavior. But no doubt you are comfortable with your pension being paid by the average worker rather than anything but token payments by these lot busily feeding overseas shareholder accounts.

Well bully for you mate but perhaps you should leave it to those who care.

SR wriggling like a worm dropped on hard ground.

Dear Hasbeen,

No wriggling here mate.

I'm not the one with Shell tattooed on one breast and Santos on the other. The shareholders are obviously dear to your heart and the ordinary Aussie punter can nick off as far as you are concerned.

3 million in royalties on a record production and 4 bloody billion in sales. Hell mate, you would probably even give them a discount on that and tell me to stop picking on the poor buggers.

It seems you can't read a profit and loss statement Steele. If you go to page 63 of that report you will find that they paid $59 million in USD in 2020 plus $154 m in royalty related taxes and $90 m the year before plus $97 m in royalty related taxes. I think your $3 m figure probably refers to a royalty that was income to them.

Despite not making a profit in 2020 they still paid $5 m in income tax, and $30 m the year before, same page.

You will also see that revenue does not translate into income. Page 63 is a cashflow statement, to see what the profit is you need to go to the profit and loss, or to give you a wider view try page 2 where there is a graph showing losses of $1047m and $360 m in 2016 and 2017, and profits of $630 and $674 for the following two years followed by a loss of $357m

I made no claims about the net GST, just that they would have paid it. I'm not sure what level they would pay, given that a lot of their product is exported and therefore doesn't attract GST. In my businesses GST normally nets out to around 3%.

You and your sources also love to confuse turnover with profit. Company taxes are normally paid on profit. Because the price of oil and gas fluctuates, and producers' overheads are very fixed, it is easy for miners to go from making very generous profits one year, to huge losses the next. But even when they make a loss they still pay royalties, which is why royalties are far superior to a rental resource tax from the taxpayer's point of view.

And you're wrong about the resource rental tax only cutting in for companies of a certain size. https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Minerals-resource-rent-tax/

God you lefties are sick.

If you don't like multinationals doing the mining & extracting the oil & gas, why the hell don't you do it?

If it annoys you so much that companies earn profit for investment in building something, get your lazy ass off the chair, & go organise a couple of those wealthy union owned super funds to do something useful for a change.

Oh, they do. They own more of Santos, Shell & the much hated banks & insurance companies than all the Libs put together.

Just stop whinging some time, you little man.