B&T has run the rule over every media, advertising and tech company that were compelled to publicly disclose their tax affairs for FY25. It found an industry that largely pays a fair share of table income, but one in which profits are either lean, or being offshored in the case of multinationals to avoid tax.
The majority of Australia’s large media and advertising companies are paying either the full amount of corporation tax, which in Australia is 30 per cent of profits, or close too that amount with an average tax rate of 26.3 per cent.
The companies that paid the most tax was REA Group ($246.8 million), followed by Google ($89.5 million) and Nine ($76.7 million).
Of those companies that are paying tax, the average taxable income is around 11 per cent of revenue, while the average tax paid on total income is 2.8 per cent.
There are many reasons why media and advertising companies have been lowering their tax bills.
Many parts of the industry are challenged or in structural decline and profits are hard to come by. Companies are able to offset taxable income from their current tax bill with losses from previous years, while there are tax offsets for R&D and capital investments that can impact a company’s tax exposure.
Multinational companies, in particularly technology business and global holding companies, are able to lower their tax bill by shifting profits to low tax regimes via accounting methods such as transfer pricing.
These include the likes of Netflix, which booked $1.4 billion in revenue but only paid $8.4 million in tax (0.6 per cent of revenue); TikTok ($27.3 million in tax, 2.5 per cent); Amazon ($42.3 million in tax, 1.1 per cent); and Facebook ($39.9 million in tax, 2.7 per cent).
The ATO’s annual database only requires companies that report more than $100 million in revenue to publicly disclose their tax figures.
News Australia, which owns a 61 per cent stake in REA Group, paid no tax on a taxable income of $310.4 million.
B&T contacted News Australia to clarify the ATO figures, but did not receive a response at the time of publishing.
Other notable media and advertising companies that did not pay tax include Ten Network, Dentsu and JCDecaux.
JCDecaux’s low tax bill follows huge disruption and losses from COVID, which it has carried forward to reduce profitability in FY25 as per Australian tax law.
Australia’s Adland Tax Table FY25
In order of total tax paid. Source ATO.
| Name | Total income $ | Taxable income $ | Taxable income vs total (%) | Tax paid $ | Tax vs taxable income (%) |
Tax vs total income (%)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| REA GROUP | 1,557,173,833 | 892,073,189 | 57 | 246,878,762 | 28 | 15.9 |
| GOOGLE AUSTRALIA | 2,070,359,291 | 332,141,582 | 16 | 89,523,747 | 27 | 4.3 |
| NINE ENTERTAINMENT CO. | 2,267,581,254 | 290,509,867 | 13 | 76,719,189 | 26 | 3.4 |
| ACCENTURE AUSTRALIA | 2,936,671,817 | 241,842,951 | 8 | 70,747,844 | 29 | 2.4 |
| CAR GROUP | 664,093,647 | 188,620,594 | 28 | 43,807,859 | 23 | 6.6 |
| AMAZON COMMERCIAL SERVICES (Amazon Ads) | 3,826,343,252 | 141,072,500 | 4 | 42,321,750 | 30 | 1.1 |
| FACEBOOK AUSTRALIA | 1,466,051,464 | 132,915,948 | 9 | 39,874,784 | 30 | 2.7 |
| IVE GROUP | 937,942,406 | 78,412,072 | 8 | 23,523,622 | 30 | 2.5 |
| OOH!MEDIA | 584,724,892 | 68,376,969 | 12 | 20,462,723 | 30 | 3.5 |
| LIVE NATION AUSTRALASIA | 860,555,025 | 65,454,917 | 8 | 19,447,997 | 30 | 2.3 |
| DOMAIN AUSTRALIA | 374,493,786 | 104,097,800 | 28 | 18,399,207 | 18 | 4.9 |
| TIKTOK AUSTRALIA | 686,614,046 | 88,343,503 | 13 | 17,342,969 | 20 | 2.5 |
| OMNICOM MEDIA GROUP AUSTRALIA | 471,673,985 | 45,902,282 | 10 | 13,584,531 | 30 | 2.9 |
| BLOOMBERG AUSTRALIA | 435,447,086 | 40,543,146 | 9 | 12,162,944 | 30 | 2.8 |
| INTERPUBLIC AUSTRALIA | 211,513,994 | 36,504,997 | 17 | 10,944,054 | 30 | 5.2 |
| FTI CONSULTING FD AUSTRALIA | 142,717,741 | 31,242,806 | 22 | 9,372,842 | 30 | 6.6 |
| ARN MEDIA | 343,993,721 | 40,772,275 | 12 | 8,943,018 | 22 | 2.6 |
| NETFLIX AUSTRALIA | 1,409,848,983 | 45,882,212 | 3 | 8,430,843 | 18 | 0.6 |
| LINKEDIN SINGAPORE | 152,946,499 | 26,203,588 | 17 | 7,861,076 | 30 | 5.1 |
| WPP AUNZ | 590,861,446 | 25,708,979 | 4 | 7,285,923 | 28 | 1.2 |
| CLEMENGER GROUP | 204,723,998 | 42,304,515 | 21 | 5,552,636 | 13 | 2.7 |
| SOUTHERN CROSS MEDIA GROUP | 494,102,186 | 14,775,260 | 3 | 4,218,292 | 29 | 0.9 |
| THOMSON REUTERS (AUSTRALIA) | 196,533,145 | 10,438,326 | 5 | 3,131,498 | 30 | 1.6 |
| WOLTERS KLUWER AUSTRALIA | 100,110,246 | 10,308,011 | 10 | 3,065,929 | 30 | 3.1 |
| SEVEN WEST MEDIA | 1,313,361,876 | 11,742,671 | 1 | 2,959,597 | 25 | 0.2 |
| AUDIBLE AUSTRALIA | 189,795,377 | 7,784,430 | 4 | 2,325,798 | 30 | 1.2 |
| NOVA ENTERTAINMENT RADIO INVESTMENTS | 193,505,229 | 15,731,027 | 8 | 1,578,641 | 10 | 0.8 |
| GTN | 101,641,742 | 4,697,637 | 5 | 1,409,291 | 30 | 1.4 |
| BBC STUDIOS AUSTRALIA | 255,908,406 | 23,793,973 | 9 | 1,184,029 | 5 | 0.5 |
| SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT GROUP | 146,799,535 | 3,628,118 | 2 | 968,157 | 27 | 0.7 |
| ARE MEDIA HOLDCO | 225,282,280 | 3,355,180 | 1 | 961,128 | 29 | 0.4 |
| ENERO GROUP | 111,539,577 | 2,751,426 | 2 | 825,428 | 30 | 0.7 |
| ADVERTISING ASSOCIATES | 119,495,431 | 1,217,098 | 1 | 365,129 | 30 | 0.3 |
| KICK STREAMING PTY L TD | 167,284,858 | 130,508 | 0 | 39,152 | 30 | 0.0 |
| NEWS AUSTRALIA | 1,886,287,823 | 310,408,656 | 16 | – | 0 | |
| TICKETMASTER AUSTRALASIA | 190,480,596 | 16,932,314 | 9 | – | 0 | |
| DENTSU AUSTRALIA | 220,932,598 | – | 0 | – | 0 | |
| ITV STUDIOS AUSTRALIA | 180,022,272 | – | 0 | – | 0 | |
| JCDECAUX AUSTRALIA | 465,362,619 | – | 0 | – | 0 | |
| NETWORK TEN ALL ACCESS | 158,724,279 | – | 0 | – | 0 | |
| TEN NETWORK | 436,923,884 | – | 0 | – | 0 | |
| UNIVERSAL PICTURES INTERNATIONAL AUSTRALASIA | 351,009,141 | – | 0 | – | 0 | |
| WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT AUSTRALIA | 973,949,604 | – | 0 | – | 0 | |
| WIN CORPORATION | 190,654,675 | – | 0 | – | 0 |
