Treasurer Scott Morrison has continued to press for extending corporate tax cuts to all businesses, arguing that Australia's 10 top companies have paid more than a quarter of all corporate tax.
Mr Morrison on Thursday dismissed claims corporations in Australia are not paying tax, saying there was $68 billion in corporate tax receipts from 2016-17, representing 4.4 per cent of Australia's gross domestic product.
"That is twice what it is in the US at 2.2 per cent and significantly higher than the UK at 2.5 per cent," Mr Morrison told an Australian Business Economists forum in Sydney.
He said statistics from the Australian Taxation Office due out on Friday would show the nation's top 10 companies paid 27 per cent of total corporate tax - more than the amount paid by almost one million small companies across Australia.
The top 50 companies paid 38 per cent of all corporate tax collected, he said.
"Not only are these companies paying a significant share in taxes, they are also paying one of the highest corporate tax rates in the OECD at 30 per cent," Mr Morrison said.
He said by 2020, there will be only one OECD country that has a higher tax rate than Australia, leaving the nation at a significant disadvantage compared to global competitors who are benefiting from a lower tax rate, such as the UK, Singapore and the US.
"We have already delivered a five percentage point reduction in tax rates to business with a turnover under $50 million, and it remains our mission to extend those cuts to all businesses," he said.
The government fell short of getting sufficient numbers in the Senate before Easter to pass the tax legislation that would reduce the company tax rate to 25 per cent from 30 per cent for all businesses.
Australia's peak union body on Thursday refuted Mr Morrison's claims that tax cuts - which have been costed at $65 billion over a decade - would lead to more secure jobs for Australian workers and give employees pay rises, and argued the move would take $65 billion away from schools and hospitals.
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) national campaign coordinator Lance McCallum described the cuts as "corporate greed".
"We have had record low wage growth while business profits have increased," Mr McCallum said.
"Wage rises don't trickle down from employers, they are won by workers, and we need to give workers more power to demand the wage rises they need."
