Scandal-ridden telco Optus, the world’s biggest meat producer, global tech firms and huge gas producers are among a host of major companies earning billions of dollars a year but paying zero income tax. Singapore Telecom, the locally registered owner of Optus, earned $8.2bn in 2023-24, but reported zero taxable income and paid no tax on that, the ATO data showed. But it paid zero tax on that income. But Ichthys LNG – which operates one of the world’s biggest gas fields on the north-west coast of Western Australia – paid zero tax despite earning $10.7bn in the year. The ATO report, however, showed the share of big companies paying zero tax has dropped, from 36% a decade ago to 28% now.