The Commonwealth’s coffers received a nice boost this year… Largely thanks to high resource prices, companies paid $83.8 billion in corporate income tax in the 2021-22 financial year – up 22% from the previous year and 50% the year before that. New data from the Tax Office shows it’s the first year that the resources sector paid more tax than all other sectors combined, with mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto coughing up a quarter of the total. Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s Fortescue Metals, the Commonwealth Bank and Westpac rounded out the top 5 taxpayers. Over 800 large companies paid no tax last financial year, including Qantas, AGL and Optus parent company Singapore Telecom. That doesn’t mean they’re dodging their obligations – the tax is payable on profits, not gross income, and losses can be offset against future profits. Hate the game, not the players…