A new report has found foreign gas companies are not paying tax in Australia.

Chief economist at the Australia Institute, Greg Jericho, says foreign gas companies are good at finding ways to avoid paying tax.

“There’s also the real issue of transfer pricing because essentially these gas companies are buying the gas from themselves, turning it into LNG (liquefied natural gas) and then selling that LNG overseas,” he said.

The report also found Origin Energy was the only company which paid tax.

“But that was less than $1 billion on about $133 billion worth of revenue over a decade, which doesn’t really translate to much,” he added.

Mr Jericho also says the argument used by the industry regarding employment was overstated.

“The gas industry rather likes to lump itself in with iron ore … and really, it’s not on that stratosphere,” he noted.

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