Christian Edwards
(Australian Associated Press)

Australian mining companies’ effective tax rate fell in 2015/16, but the industry body still wants the company tax rate reduced.

The miners paid an effective tax rate – which combines company tax and mining royalties on its profits – of 51 per cent in 2015/16, compared to 54 per cent in the previous year, according to the Minerals Council.

But MCA interim chief executive David Byers said the industry could make an even greater contribution to Australia if the company tax rate was lowered.

He did not give details on how.

“Australia’s 30 per cent company tax rate is too high for a capital hungry nation which needs to encourage business investment,” Mr Byers said in a statement.

The 2017 Deloitte Access Economics Minerals Industry Tax Survey, which the MCA received on December 8 and made public on Monday, showed that total taxes as a share of profits decreased three percentage points in FY16.

Deloitte partner Stephen Smith said that the easing in the tax rate was possibly because of the impact of asset sales and reductions in tax losses from the previous year, rather than to any turnaround in business conditions.

According to the report, in the decade to 2016 the minerals industry paid a total of $185 billion in federal company tax, as well as state and territory royalties.

The report said the historical average effective tax rate was 45 per cent.