Yes they have contributed significantly to the gov coffers, but
I recall someone quoteing figures that these company profits (much going overseas) have increased exponentially more over recent years than the Aus tax take.
I'd suggest past and arguably current corruption allegations in WA and now Qld where the states collect the mineral royalties and big political donations from the big miners for political favors re mineral leases and developments, that they have left their very fat pork bellies very exposed for someone like Rudd to corner them for a feast of his own.
Not justifying one way or other, but they have made themselves a very conspicious increased tax target.
Taking the devils advocate position, maybe they'll spend more on exploration and development now to develop more projects as opposed to 'cherry picking' the most cost effective prospects they want to develop and useing their monolopy to just sit on many others until they get a sale price they demand or eventually relinquish, forcing big delays or preventing smaller and even private operators getting in on the act.
Tax rate has remained equivalent to the rise in resource income:- On Saturday, for example, Swan argued: "There are some figures that are worth bearing in mind when it comes to mining taxes. "At the beginning of the 2000s, or around that date, something like one in three dollars in mining profit was returned to the Australian people. Now it's more like one in seven."
Now Swan knows only too well that statement is wildly misleading. He was actually talking about the states' royalties, not the total tax take.
There is no question that the states' royalty payments have not extracted revenue from the miners at the same rate at which profits have been increasing. That is what happens when you have ad valorem royalties which rise and fall on tonnes actually shipped (though in some cases, like coal in Queensland, on prices received as well).
But, according to Swan's own numbers, the industry's total tax contribution (which was $21bn in 2009), represented something near 28 per cent of gross profit generated (through royalty and income tax contributions). And gross profit is a distorting figure to use in this context anyway, given that it does not reflect outgoings like interest payments and depreciation along with income tax.
The federal government believes the Australian mining industry has somehow short-changed taxpayers out of $35bn over the last five years of the boom. The paper notes that the $35bn figure comes from what the government says would have been the share of industry profits through royalties and other charges if they had remained at the average for the first half of the decade, and not fallen from about 40 per cent to 12 per cent in the past five years.
This is a ludicrous position.
The biggest taxpayer among the Australian miners is BHP Billiton. It claims the RSP tax would increase the tax take from its Australian profits from around 43 per cent to 57 per cent by 2013. Last year BHP Billiton paid $6.3bn in Australian tax, some $3bn in company tax, $1.9bn in state royalties and $1.1bn in petroleum resources rent tax.
The company made a net profit of $6.5bn.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...a-curb-on-growth/story-e6frg9if-1225861303119
What alleged corruption in WA and QLD in the mining industry are you arguably referring to Whiskers? The state mineral royalties will not be relinquished to the Feds is my understanding of the situation.
So on this theory because they are profitable we should tax the hell out of them and watch then disappear to another country (the Jansen potash project in Canada, for example).