Qantas pays $253m in FY2019 tax

The days of Qantas paying no corporate tax are well and truly over.

Qantas made a before tax profit of $1.26bn in the 2019 financial year. Picture: Alamy

The days of Qantas paying no corporate tax are well and truly over, with the Flying Kangaroo shelling out $253m in the 2019 financial year.

The big tax bill followed almost a decade of paying no corporate tax following the global financial crisis, a union dispute and then a $2.8bn loss in the 2014 financial year.

Under the Australian taxation system, companies can carry forward any losses to be offset by future profits.

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For Qantas those offsets ended last year when the airline paid $11m in corporate tax, and in the 2019 financial year payments surged to $253m, equivalent to a 29.6 per cent tax rate.

According to the airline’s voluntary tax transparency code report, Qantas had paid all taxes owed, including $185m in payroll tax, and $23m in fringe benefits tax.

Qantas made a before tax profit of $1.26bn in the 2019 financial year, down from $1.35bn the previous year.

A first quarter trading update delivered by CEO Alan Joyce suggested the airline was paying close attention to costs due to the challenging trading environment.

A number of job cuts are expected before Christmas as Qantas reorganises its head office, following the decision not to replace retiring People and Culture CEO Lesley Grant.

Figures of up to 400 redundancies have been reported, but Qantas expects to redeploy a number of workers into vacancies elsewhere within the airline.