Jul 13, 20231 min read

ExxonMobil Paid $0 in Tax After 8 Years and $80 Billion in Profit

Updated: Jul 18, 2023

The Exxon Mobil Corporation, commonly referred to as Exxon, is a multinational oil and gas company formed from the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999. It is also the largest descendent of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil.

In May of 2023 Michael West Media reported that ExxonMobil had profited $82 billion out of Australia over the previous 8 years without paying any tax. Of this total profit, only roughly $650,000 was listed as taxable income. It was previously reported that Exxon had spent $10 million fighting the Australian Tax Office up until 2013. In 2020 Exxon entered into another legal dispute with the ATO, this time regarding tax payable on their Gippsland Basin operation.

In 2018 Exxon faced a Senate Inquiry into Corporate Tax Avoidance. Australian Exxon executives were unable to provide answers regarding "how many Exxon companies there were in this country" or "why a company in the Bahamas owned the Dutch company which owned their company."

Exxon announced in the same year that they had invested $21 billion into developing and exporting Australian resources. However, this investment was unlikely to return any taxes to the Australian Government in the form of PRRT until the mid-2030s. This is because this investment, in the form of exploration for new resource extraction sites, are utilised as tax losses marked against potential profits. As described by Michael West for Michael West Media:

"It is a reverse Ponzi Scheme of sorts where profits are continuously eliminated by new exploration money. As long as the new money keeps rolling in, Exxon doesn’t have to pay tax."