The Gold Coast Bulletin

According to latest stats gender earn still under a tax

- SOPHIE ELSWORTH

WOMEN in just 6 per cent of all occupation­s earn an average taxable income that is higher than men, new Australian Taxation Office statistics have found.

New figures released from the 2016-17 financial year found from about 1100 occupation­s females have an average income that is more than men in just 72 jobs.

This includes authors, future traders, magistrate­s, profession­al surfers and illustrato­rs.

And it appears workers are seeing their pay packets go backwards – the average taxable income nationally in 2016-17 was $59,014. It fell from 2015-16 where the average income was $59,215.

The data was collated from more than 16.5 million tax returns filed during the 2016-17 financial year from 13.9 million individual­s, 970,000 from companies as well as super funds, partnershi­ps and trusts.

And those in the medical industry continued to dominate with the highest salaries – surgeons earned on average $394,000 annually, followed by anaestheti­sts at $367,000 and internal medicine specialist­s at $299,000.

The ATO’s deputy commission­ers of policy, analysis and legislatio­n, Louise Clarke, said despite men coming out the biggest income earners in many categories women still got paid well in many profession­s.

“There will still be women that are high income earners in other categories,” he said.

But she also said, “There’s still a large percentage of women in occupation­s such as teachers, nurses and childcare workers who seem to have a lower average taxable income.”

The results also showed Australian­s have become more generous at donating – total donations increased from $2.8 billion in the 2015-16 financial year, to $3.5 billion in the 2016-17 financial year.

 ??  ?? Medical specialist­s top earners.
Medical specialist­s top earners.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Australia