The doctor is in: Australia’s ten highest-paid occupations revealed in ATO data

Medical professionals dominate the list of Australia’s top-earning occupations, with the nation’s top taxpayers clustered in New South Wales’ most exclusive suburbs, new Australian Taxation Office (ATO) data reveals.

The ATO revealed a telling data snapshot from the 2010-2021 financial year on Thursday, indicating which individuals and company types faced the largest tax liabilities as the COVID-19 pandemic first set in.

Surgeons topped the list of taxpaying occupations, with more than 4,000 individuals reporting an average taxable income of $457,281.

Anaesthetists came next, boasting average taxable incomes of $426,894 across nearly 3,500 individuals.

Medical and mental health professionals account for five of the top ten occupations in terms of taxable income, the 2020-2021 data shows.

On the business side, chief executive officers and managing directors ranked ninth in terms of average taxable income.

However, individuals in those categories far outnumbered any other profession in the top ten, with 224,015 individuals claiming CEO or managing director status.

Top ten occupations, by average taxable income:

• Surgeons: $457,281 across 4,157 individuals
• Anaesthetists: $426,894 across 3,479 individuals
• Financial dealers: $341,798 across 4,761 individuals
• Internal medicine specialists: $334,267 across 10,055 individuals
• Psychiatrists: $270,412 across 3,071 individuals
• Other medical practitioners: $251,722 across 28,947 individuals
• Mining engineers: $196,178 across 9,127 individuals
• Judicial or other legal professionals: $193,388 across 4,025 individuals
• Chief executive officers or managing directors: $177,506 across 224,015 individuals
• Financial investment advisors or managers: $169,608 across 20,268 individuals

The figures broadly mirror the 2015-2016 snapshot, where surgeons, anaesthetists, and internal medicine specialists took out the top three positions.

Few surprises emerge from the list of top-earning postcodes, either.

Sydney’s harbourside Double Bay ranked first, with its 3,352 taxpayers reporting an average taxable income of nearly $270,000.

There is a casual $36,000 gap between those earnings and those of the second-ranked postcode, 2030, which covers the nearby suburbs of Dover Heights, HMAS Watson, Rose Bay North, Vaucluse, and Watsons Bay.

Individuals there reported an average taxable income of $230,597.

Top ten suburbs, by average individual taxable income

• Double Bay, NSW, 2028: $266,381 across 3,352 individuals
• Dover Heights, HMAS Watson, Rose Bay North, Vaucluse, and Watsons Bay, NSW, 2030: $230,597 across 9,539 individuals
• Cottesloe, Wattle Grove, WA, 6011: $229,805 across 6,648 individuals
• Hawksburn, Toorak, VIC, 3142: $222,967 across 9,700 individuals
• Portsea, VIC, 3944: $221,236 across 559 individuals
• Bellevue Hill, NSW, 2023: $218,902 across 7,108 individuals
• Darling Point, Edgecliff, HMAS Rushcutters, Point Piper, 2027, NSW: $218,528 across 5,682 individuals
• Woollahra, NSW, 2025: $212,881 across 4,922 individuals
• Northbridge, NSW, 2063: $191,225 across 4,284 individuals
• Mosman, Spit Junction, NSW, 2088: $188,324 across 19,706 individuals

Beyond individual tax data, the snapshot also provides insight into how small businesses fit into the broader corporate taxation system.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, defined as anything from loss-making ventures to entities reporting $100 million in taxable business income, comprised 99.7% of all entities.

Entity size by total income reported

• Loss/Nil, less than $0/equal to $0: 14.2%
• Micro, $1 to less than $2 million: 75.9%
• Small, $2 million to less than $10 million: 7.6%
• Medium, $10 million to less than $100 million: 2%
• Large, $100 million to less than $250 million: 0.2%
• Very large: $250 million and over: 0.1%

But net tax figures practically invert the ranking.

Although microbusinesses comprised three-quarters of all taxpaying entities, they paid just 10.5% of corporate tax in 2020-2021, compared to 60.9% for Australia’s very large companies.

Notably, the data also hints at how businesses cut back on rental costs or ceased physical operations once pandemic restrictions kicked in.

Average annual rent expenses were $130,087 in 2019-2020, compared to $123,176 in 2020-2021.

You can delve through the data here.