Background: The ATO has been publishing its Tax Transparency Report for 12 years, giving Australians a look at how much tax the country's biggest businesses actually pay. The report covers companies earning $100 million or more in income, so we're talking about some of corporate Australia's biggest players.

What happened: This year, there were plenty of zeros. Of the 4,299 big businesses included in the report, 1,149 paid no income tax in FY25, which is roughly 27% of the lot. At the same time, total tax payable across the group fell by $8.2 billion. That's a pretty chunky number to disappear from the tax bill.

What else: Businesses can have legitimate reasons for ending up with a zero income tax bill, so the headline number needs a bit more digging. Still, when more than a quarter of Australia's biggest companies report paying no income tax, it's probably worth asking what's sitting underneath those zeroes.

What's the key learning?

💡 A company can be swimming in revenue... and still be drowning when it comes to profit. Company tax is paid on profit, not revenue.  

💡In Australia, companies can generally carry losses forward and use them to offset future profits. So a company can be making money today and still pay no tax because past losses are wiping out this year's taxable profit.

💡 A zero tax bill isn't automatically dodgy, but the ATO still has reasons to investigate some of them. As we've seen, some companies shift profits to lower-tax countries (lookin' at you Meta, Spotify, Netflix and co), where the rate can be below Australia's 30%, which is exactly the kind of zero the ATO is hunting.