Australia Tax: Rudd defends use of old tax data

25 May 2010 -- Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has defended Treasury's comparative analysis of corporate taxation, despite it being based on data that is six years old.

The analysis, released on Monday, was based on 2004/05 taxation statistics and showed that mining companies paid just eight per cent of the nation's overall tax take in 2004/05.

However, more up-to-date statistics for 2007/08, released in March, show the tax take was 14 per cent, topped by only the finance industry at 40 per cent.

The numbers are being used as further foils by both sides of politics in the heated debate over the government's proposed 40 per cent resources super profits tax.

Mr Rudd, in answer to a question from opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb, said the coalition had asked for substantiating material on tax arrangements on the mining industry.

Now having received the Treasury analysis, Mr Robb objected to its contents.

"He objects to its contents because it concludes that the average company tax rate on the mining was 17 per cent in the decade to 2004/05," the Prime Minister said. "I would suggest the leader of the opposition read the paper from the Treasury, digest its contents and stop simply acting as the mouthpiece of the MCA (Minerals Council of Australia)."

Mr Abbott might also undertake some independent research which might be in the national economic interest, Mr Rudd said.

Mr Rudd also was quizzed about an academic research paper from the US which the government had used to argue mining companies should pay more tax.

The PhD student who co-authoured the paper said the size of the sample was why Australian figures were dumped from an updated version.

Kevin Markle conceded the figures he used in the paper could have been based on as few as four Australian companies.

"Whoever chose to use that table as if it delivered some precise measurement on that was not the right thing to do," he told The Australian online today.

Mr Rudd would not respond directly to a question from Opposition Leader Tony Abbott about the Australian figures being omitted from the latest version of the research.