The tax transparency report released by the Australian Tax Office on Thursday revealed that 38 percent of the 1,539 corporations operating in Australia did not pay taxes in the 2013-14 financial year. The ATO published the names of 579 such companies.

"Publishing this data is a step forward in improving corporate tax transparency," tax commissioner Chris Jordan said in a statement on Thursday. "Most large corporates, particularly domestic Australian companies, meet their tax obligations, notwithstanding that we do have some significant disputes with some of them."

According to Jordan, the tax data of these companies have been disclosed by the ATO for the community to form an idea on them as these would be crucial to community trust and confidence.

The report has listed every public and foreign-owned company that reported a total income of $100 million or more in the fiscal year of 2013-14. The figures have been derived from the tax return labels or amendments that have been advised by the taxpayers themselves before Sep. 1, 2015.

However, according to Jordan, not paying taxes may not always mean tax avoidance.

“No tax paid does not necessarily mean tax avoidance,” he said. “Any companies with unusual financial or taxation numbers are closely investigated by the ATO. Over half of these 1,500 companies have been subject to ATO review or audit over the past three years, with the ATO’s risk and intelligence systems working all the time to ensure that we can all have confidence in the tax system. Historically, we raise additional assessments of about $2 billion each year through our compliance action on this group of companies.”

According to the report, the recession that followed the World War II was the worst of its kind and the impact could be felt even in 2013-14.

Shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh pointed out that about half of the foreign-owned firms in banking and finance are not paying tax but the government can do more in these sectors.

TOP 10 AUSTRALIAN COMPANIES WHICH DIDN'T PAY TAX: The companies in the following list have been arranged in descending order along with their 2013/14 annual income.

1. Qantas Airways, earned $14.9 billion

2. GHP 104 160 689 Pty Ltd, earned $11.7 billion

3. ExxonMobil Australia, earned $9.6 billion

4. Lend Lease Corporation, earned $7.7 billion

5. Citic Resources, earned $5 billion

6. Mitsubishi Development, earned $4.6 billion

7. Glencore Investment, earned $4.6 billion

8. Hope Downs Marketing, earned $4.4 billion

9. Virgin Australia, earned $4.3 billion

10. General Motors Australia, earned $4.1 billion

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