Corporate Australia paid almost $100 billion in income tax in 2022/23, an increase of nearly 17 per cent on the previous year, but almost a third of businesses avoided a tax bill.

The record level of receipts is revealed in the Australian Taxation Office’s tenth annual Corporate Tax Transparency (CTT) report.

Despite the rise in tax collected from Australia’s biggest corporations, data showed that 1253 entities from a total of 3985 businesses did not pay tax, although this was a reduction of five per cent since the first CTT report in 2013-14.

Of the 31 per cent that did not pay tax, 14 per cent incurred an accounting loss, seven per cent incurred a tax loss, two per cent utilised offsets and eight per cent used tax losses from prior year.

ATO Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Saint said there were “legitimate reasons” why a company may pay no income tax.

“The Australian community can be assured we pay close attention to those who pay no income tax to ensure that they are not trying to game the system,” she said.

She hailed the total income tax figure of $97.9 billion as a “great result” and said tax paid in 2022-23 was the highest since CTT reporting started.

Most sectors of the economy paid more tax than the previous year and the oil and gas sector contributed $11.6 billion, driven by a combination of commodity prices, the project production life cycle and ATO intervention.

For the second year in a row, the mining sector paid more tax than all other sectors combined, paying more than five times than they did in 2014-15.

Ms Saint said after ATO compliance measures, large corporates paid 96 per cent of the income tax they should have for 2021-22.

“As they should be, large corporate groups are amongst the highest in net tax performance of all population segments,” she said.

The federal government seized on the result as evidence of its efforts to bolster ATO compliance operations, including $200 million in increased funding for the Tax Avoidance Taskforce.

Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones says the increase in tax collected vindicated the work of the government and ATO to claw back money owed by some of Australia’s biggest companies.

“The ATO’s work is crucial in the fight to hold big companies to account. Our government will always ensure it has the resources necessary to retrieve what is owed so we can fund services the community needs,” he said.

Mr Jones says the Tax Avoidance Taskforce has led a crackdown on tax dodging by multinational enterprises, large Australian public and private groups and wealthy individuals.

Since the taskforce was formed in 2016, it has helped secure more than $33.2 billion in additional tax revenue from multinational enterprises, large public and private businesses.

More big corporates paying their fair share of tax means more funding for essential services for Australians like healthcare, infrastructure, and education, the minister said.

“Australia is leading the way on corporate and multinational tax transparency to drive lasting behavioural change,” Assistant Minister for Treasury Andrew Leigh said.

Mr Jones said in 2022 the federal government was chasing an overall yearly shortfall of more than $33 billion in unpaid tax.