New Australia Institute research published today shows that the Japanese Government makes more revenue taxing its imports of Australian gas than the Australian Government makes from the export of our gas.
Key findings:
- Japan has imposed a tax on oil and gas imports since 1978, expanding the tax to cover coal in 2003.
- Over the last five years, Japan’s energy import tax has delivered an average of AUD $8 billion per year to the Japanese Government.
- On average, every year, $1.8 billion of Japan’s energy import tax comes from gas imports, substantially more than the $1.4 billion raised by the Australian Government’s Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT).
“It’s hard to believe how badly Australians have been ripped off by gas export companies,” said Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO of the Australia Institute.
“Japan, a country with no gas, oil or coal reserves of its own collected almost $40 billion over the last five years while the Australian PRRT provided only $7 billion to Australians.
“Not only has Australia been literally giving more than half of the gas we export away for free, we now learn that the same Japanese Government that is opposed to us putting a tax on our gas and coal exports, has been raking in billions of dollars per year via their own tax on gas and coal imports.
