Business & household income
Customers pay for goods and services. Businesses pay workers, suppliers, lenders, governments and owners. Households also receive investment income and transfers.
What we sell and who buys itLoading the account…
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The money
Businesses sell, people work and invest, and governments collect revenue. Following those different recipients is the starting point for understanding Australia’s money.
Customers pay for goods and services. Businesses pay workers, suppliers, lenders, governments and owners. Households also receive investment income and transfers.
What we sell and who buys itTaxes, fees, royalties, dividends and other income enter government accounts. Parliament and public institutions authorise how public money is used.
Read the public accountInvestors acquire assets and lenders expect repayment. A foreign investment holding is neither a year’s income nor automatically money received by government.
Who invests and ownsGovernment charges for some goods and services, receives royalties for resource rights, earns interest and receives dividends from public investments and enterprises.
Royalties are already counted in the non-tax total. Publicly owned enterprises and private businesses also have their own accounts; their gross sales are not all government revenue.
Explore the major tax familiesPercentages use non-tax revenue as the denominator. Components differ from the total by $1m because of rounding.
The consolidated general government sector includes Commonwealth, state and local government and public universities. These are annual accrual revenues, not just cash deposits in a bank account.
Table 1, cells K8–K15 · A$ millions
Open original sourceThe removal covers grants and other transactions within the sector. It is an accounting adjustment, not missing money. Commonwealth, state, local and university totals each have a role, but the consolidated total answers the national question.
The displayed bridge rounds $1,242,784m less $220,433m to $1,022,351m. Internal transactions must be removed when combining the subsectors.
Table 1: all-Australia general government and subsector revenue totals, A$ millions
Open original sourceGovernments can borrow to finance cash needs, investment and maturing debt. Borrowing brings money in now and creates a liability; repayment reduces that liability. Neither movement is tax revenue.
An operating balance, cash deficit and change in debt can differ because they measure different things. A budget announcement is also different from an actual payment.
APLNG’s published accounts show customer receipts, suppliers and employees, tax, dividends, investment and debt movements across two years.
Follow the APLNG moneyRead the full public finance research