Despite $22bn promise, Adani has paid zero corporate tax in Australia and experts think it won't ever pay a cent

The Guardian

a day ago

More than three years after Adani started extracting coal from its Queensland mine, the Indian conglomerate has paid zero corporate tax from its Australian project – and tax experts say it may 'never pay a cent'.
Adani pledged just over a decade ago to plough $22bn in taxes and royalties into the Australian economy. Industry groups supporting the coal company had also claimed Adani's controversial plans would fund schools, hospitals and other infrastructure for 'almost a century'.
Guardian Australia analysis also found that the Abbot Point port, operated by an Adani entity under a 99-year lease signed in 2011, rarely pays tax. Over a 10-year period, it paid company tax on port income on just one occasion, of less than $4m.
Adani's Carmichael mine, and rail and port operations, are among the most politically divisive projects in Australia. While critics usually raise environmental concerns, there's also a question over its economic benefits for Australia.
Despite recording strong revenue, Adani's Australian assets regularly report annual losses, in large part due to large annual payments to related parties for interest and lease expenses.
It also pays for services conducted by other Adani entities as the coal moves through the logistics chain from mine to export.
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Jason Ward, the principal analyst at the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research, says the level of related-party transactions at Adani's Australian operations is 'pretty unprecedented'.
'My judgment on this is that this company is absolutely set up to never make taxable profit,' Ward says.
'The related-party transactions are so big and wild and all over the map that this company will never make a profit on paper and will never pay a cent of tax.'
Adani's most recent accounts for the Carmichael coal operations, for the year ended 31 March 2025, record $1.27bn in revenue. This gets dialled down to a $461.7m loss after various expenses, resulting in no tax payable.
Details of the 2024-25 accounts were first published by the Australian Financial Review.
Adani Mining's immediate parent company is in Singapore, which has a low corporate tax rate. Its ultimate parent is the India-based Adani Enterprises.
Ward says similar structures are used at other multinationals, and there is no suggestion Adani has acted illegally.
But he says governments rarely hold companies to account for promises of how their operations will benefit the public purse.
'In the future, approvals should be on the basis of fulfilling promises made, with clawback mechanisms that can be put into contracts,' Ward says.
Adani's Australian mining business is branded Bravus Mining and Resources.
A spokesperson for Bravus says the company complies with the corporate tax system, which he said was designed so corporations pay tax on profits made after deducting operating costs, interest expenses, previous years' tax losses and other allowable deductions such as depreciation on capital investment.
'Corporate income tax is just one part of Australia's complex taxation system, and it is misleading to focus solely on corporate tax paid and ignore the contribution to the Queensland and Australian economies of the millions of dollars in combined GST, payroll tax, superannuation, royalties and more we paid in FY25,' the spokesperson said.
'Our operations make a significant ongoing economic and social contribution to both the people who do the work and earn the money, and to the prosperity of their home towns in regional Queensland where they spend their wage.'
The accounts show Adani Mining paid a $78.6m royalty during the last 12-month reporting period. Royalties are payments made to governments to extract state-owned minerals.
It also paid a $36m royalty to a related party.
Guardian Australia analysis of company accounts and disclosures from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) found the mining project has not paid corporate tax since opening in 2021.
Adani's accounts show that even though revenue has been rising from the Carmichael operations, it has enough interest on related-party loans and other expenses to keep reporting losses.
ATO disclosures for the Abbot Point terminal business, now named North Queensland Export Terminal Holdings, between 2013 and 2023 showed just one record of the Adani entity paying tax, which was for $4m in 2017-18.
The port regularly generates annual income of between $300m and $550m.
Tim Buckley, a former investment banker and the director of Climate Energy Finance, says that given Adani has not paid tax during recent periods of surging coal prices, it probably never will.
'If not now, when?' Buckley says.
'Adani has an extremely complex, opaque corporate structure in Australia. I'm comfortable saying they never will pay tax, given the state of the balance sheet.'
In 2014, the then head of Adani Mining, Jeyakumar Janakaraj, said the Australian operations would deliver $22bn in taxes and royalties to be invested 'right back into frontline services'.
Adani's contested coal proposal was supported by various representative bodies, including the Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association which said in 2017 the project would 'provide taxation and royalties that will fund schools, hospitals and other community infrastructure for almost a century'.
The Minerals Council of Australia said in 2018 that 'through mining taxes and royalties, the Carmichael mine will generate billions of dollars for taxpayers over decades to fund nurses, teachers, police, hospitals, roads and other services and infrastructure for Queensland families and communities'.