Queensland billionaire Sam Chong topped by only Gina Rinehart for tax paid

A little known Queensland billionaire has surged up the list of Australian corporate taxpayers.

Little known Queensland billionaire Sam Chong has surged up the list of Australian corporate taxpayers, beaten only by mining magnate Gina Rinehart, as both enjoyed booming profits thanks to demand for coal and iron ore.

Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting paid $407.9 million tax in the 2016-17 financial year, according to data released by the Australian Taxation Office on Thursday, making her the biggest payer among privately-held Australian-owned companies.

Hancock’s tax figure was the 16th biggest in the country, behind only listed companies such as big banks and giant miners BHP and Fortescue Metals Group, though two other companies connected to Mrs Rinehart and her family — Consolidated Distributions Pty Ltd and 150 Investments Pty Ltd — were among the top 10 biggest companies by revenue to pay no tax.

FMG, headed by billionaire chairman Andrew Forrest, was one of the biggest tax payers for listed companies, though a company connected to his wife Nicola, Expedition Investments Pty Ltd, paid no tax despite revenue of about $214m. That revenue though was from FMG’s fully franked dividends, meaning tax had already been paid on the income.

Similarly, the Australian operations of software giant Atlassian, founded by billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, paid no tax from revenue of $773 million.

Mr Chong’s Jellinbah Group was second only among the private rich listers with $197.6m tax paid, up from $42.5m in 2015-16. He shares the ownership of Jellinbah, which owns majority stakes in the Jellinbah Mine in Queensland’s Bowen Basin and the Lake Vermont Mine 240km northwest of Rockhampton, with subsidiaries of Japanese group Marubeni and global mining giant Anglo-American.

Jellinbah has cashed in on record demand for Australian coking coal from Chinese steel manufacturers and the falling Australian dollar.

The Australian revealed in November that Jellinbah’s 2018 financial year profits were even more impressive, rising to $629m after paying tax of $275m.

Hancock’s 2018 also included a substantial lift in profits, up 28 per cent to $1.37 billion, and the billionaire claimed her company paid $860m in federal and state taxes for the year.

Mrs Rinehart and Mr Chong are joined on the biggest taxpayers list for 2016-17 by a string of rich-list billionaires, including Sydney apartments king Harry Triguboff.

His Meriton Properties paid $197.6m in tax, about $54m more than the $143.4m paid by ALH Group, the pubs and poker machines giant jointly owned by billionaire Bruce Mathieson and Woolworths.

Perron Investments, the large property and car dealership company established by the late Perth billionaire Stan Perron, who died in late November aged 96, was another big payer. It shelled out $79.9m in taxes.

Next on the list of billionaires are mining heiresses Alexandra Burt and Leonie Baldock, whose Wright Prospecting paid $60.2m in taxes. Wright Prospecting was started by their late father Michael Wright, the former business partner of Mrs Rinehart’s father Lang Hancock.

Barob Pty Ltd, the private company of Sydney property developer Bob Ell, paid $44m tax, slightly more than Lindsay Fox’s trucking and logistics giant Linfox, which shelled out $42.4m.

Canberra business identity Terry Snow paid $33.2m tax via his Capital Property Finance group, the ultimate owner of Canberra Airport.

Tenth among the rich list billion taxpayers was Manny Stul and his Moose Toys global business. It paid $30.2m tax in 2016-17, according to the ATO.