Individuals income tax. Individuals' income tax is the single most important source of government revenue. Since the mid 1970s it has consistently raised around half of the Australian Government's tax receipts and continues to be a stable and predictable source of revenue.
For Australian services suppliers
China is Australia's largest services market, with exports in services valued at $10.3 billion in 2020-21.
High population growth, high government spending, the introduction of television (1956) and the gradual relaxation of government controls over "hire purchase" helped Australia to develop into an affluent society in the 1950s and 1960s.
They attracted exports worth A$472 billion in 2021–22. This represents almost 80% of Australia's total exports of goods and services. China currently receives around 30% of our goods and services exports. More than 40% of our exports go to Japan, Korea, India, the US, Taiwan and Singapore.
Trade and investment
China is Australia's largest two-way trading partner in goods and services, accounting for nearly one third (32.2 per cent) of our trade with the world.
Australians are the richest people in the world, with a median wealth three times that of the average American, a new report has shown.
New South Wales: a diverse economy and high income
Among all the states and territories in Australia, New South Wales is considered the richest state. It has the largest economy, a diverse range of industries, and a higher-than-average income, which contribute to its status as the wealthiest state.
The 1880s saw extraordinary growth: consumer confidence, easy access to credit, and steep increases in land prices led to an enormous amount of construction. During this "land boom", Melbourne reputedly became the richest city in the world, and the second-largest (after London) in the British Empire.
In 2022, China bought 1.1 billion tonnes of iron ore, 65% of which were from Australia. For Beijing, commodities from Australia are important for its efforts to revive the pandemic-hit economy. Iron ore, for example, is a vital component of its steel industry.
From Japan, Australia imports vehicles, refined petroleum, machinery and tyres. More recently, Japanese investment into Australia has been expanding into renewables; financial services; infrastructure; information and communications technology; property; food; and agribusiness.
Australia has plentiful supplies of natural resources, including the second largest accessible reserves of iron ore in the world, the fifth largest reserves of coal and significant gas resources. For a long time, commodities have made up a sizeable share of our exports.
Telstra and retail giant Wesfarmers dropped out of the top 10 in the report released on Thursday, as BHP was revealed to be the single largest taxpayer. The company paid $7.3 billion in 2020-21, up from $4.6 billion the prior year. The company's BHP Iron Ore (Jimblebar) entity paid $2.4 billion.
Australia is considered a wealthy nation with a market-based economy that has a comparatively high gross domestic product and per capita income. Its economy is driven by the service sector and the export of commodities. [Explore the top universities in Australia.]
In 2016, the Australian Taxation Office listed Mungallala as having the lowest mean taxable income by postcode, making it the poorest town in Australia, which led the ABC to do a documentary on the town for their online "storyhunters" program.
The poorest country in the continent of Australia is Papua New Guinea.
No suburb in the country features a greater concentration of members of The List – Australia's Richest 250 than Toorak, where Melbourne's wealthiest families have gathered for decades. Think historic looking mansions guarded by large hedges set back from the street to ensure privacy.
Australia's average wealth is just 1.8 times our median wealth; by contrast the UK's is 2.2 times greater, while the US is second worst out of the top 50, at 6.7 times.
Australians wanting to be in the country's top 1% for wealth need to have an individual net worth of US$5.5 million ($8.3 million), Knight Frank's 2023 Wealth Report has found.
Australia and Canada have similar levels of GDP per capita (based on purchasing power parity, nominal GDP per capita was around US$ 7 000 for Australia and US$ 9 000 for Canada in 008). Since 1990, Australia's growth in real GDP per capita has been a little higher than Canada's.
Foreign ownership of Australian farmland increased last year but remained flat as a percentage of the overall total, with China holding the most land.
As at 30 June 2020, of the 53.026m hectares of Australian agricultural land, 25.6% (13.59m hectares) is held by Australian investors who have shares in foreign person entities.
There are now some 1.4 million people with Chinese ancestry living in Australia, comprising 5.5% of the population. 1 According to the 2021 census, of Australia's top five ancestries, the only group to have grown since the last census in 2016 was Australians with Chinese ancestry.