Microsoft’s datacentres and Optus owner among firms paying zero tax on billion-dollar Australian revenues
The Australian Taxation Office's 2024-25 transparency database reveals that major corporations, including Microsoft's datacentre division and Singtel, generated billions in Australian revenue while reporting zero taxable income. While the ATO notes that such outcomes can result from legitimate business losses or deductions, it has increased scrutiny on digital firms to ensure tax payments reflect local economic activity. Additional legislative measures, including new media bargaining laws and anti-profit shifting rulings, are expected to address these tax gaps despite anticipated legal challenges.
- ▪Microsoft's datacentre business earned $2.3 billion in Australian revenue but reported no taxable income, while its software division paid $160.6 million in tax.
- ▪Singtel, the parent company of Optus, generated over $8.3 billion in income in 2024-25 but paid zero tax, a shift from its status as a regular taxpayer before 2020.
- ▪The ATO requires the publication of tax data for entities generating at least $100 million in Australian income, a rule that revealed over a quarter of large companies pay little or no corporate tax.
- ▪Other multinationals such as JBS Global Meat Holdings, Fonterra, and Sony Australia also reported zero tax despite generating revenues ranging from $1.6 billion to $4.8 billion.
- ▪New media bargaining laws passed in August 2026 will allow for levies on global tech platforms that do not negotiate with Australian news outlets over content usage.
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — World |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/01/microsoft-optus-singtel-netflix-corporations-paying-no-tax-australia-ato |
| Publication time | Thu, 01 Oct 2026 02:30:06 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-10-01T02:47:06.366Z |
| Last seen | 2026-10-01T02:47:06.366Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | YdIlUf4NE5Ik · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Microsoft’s datacentre business generated $2.3bn in revenue from Australia during the financial year but reported no taxable income. It is among several big businesses to have done so in 2024-25. Photograph: Jimin Kim/SOPA Images/ShutterstockView image in fullscreenMicrosoft’s datacentre business generated $2.3bn in revenue from Australia during the financial year but reported no taxable income. It is among several big businesses to have done so in 2024-25. Photograph: Jimin Kim/SOPA Images/ShutterstockTaxMicrosoft’s datacentres and Optus owner among firms paying zero tax on billion-dollar Australian revenuesATO database names big companies – including Microsoft subsidiary and Netflix – that pay little corporate tax but notes there could be legitimate reasons Follow our Australia news…
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