The ATO's services have been continually taken offline for hours, proving especially frustrating for Australians looking to lodge their tax returns, and created tension between the agency and tax professionals. Credit:Andrew Quilty On the face of it, the figures suggest these people spent almost half of their reported incomes managing their tax affairs, a proportion so high as to raise suspicions that their actual incomes were higher. The Tax Office defines "cost of managing tax affairs" as including the cost of preparing and lodging tax returns, the fees paid to recognised tax advisers, the cost of court appeals and interest charges imposed in relation to tax disputes. Bizarrely, a handful of the highest earners who escaped the Medicare levy were forced to pay the Medicare levy surcharge. The surcharge is meant to be charged on top of the levy for high earners who don't have private health insurance, but a budget change in 2008 applied to a broader measure of income than the levy itself. The levy itself applies only to taxable income, which 579 people earning more than $250,000 managed to cut to less than the tax-free threshold.

Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Ten claimed a combined $28.5 million for gifts or donations to charities and political parties, equating to $2.8 million each. Two claimed deductions for uniforms or clothing, amounting to $353 each. One claimed a deduction for work-related travel of $863. Two claimed deductions for personal car use averaging $5300 each. Only eight of the 48 were negatively geared, claiming combined rental losses of $1.54 million. Most earned their income from businesses, farming or capital gains Several carried forward losses. The number of million-dollar earners escaping tax has come down in recent years, suggesting some success on the part of the Tax Office, which promised to closely scrutinise high earners with large deductions. At the turn of the decade, 70 million-dollar earners paid no tax. By 2013-14 the number had fallen to 56.

But the continued presence of millionaires who escape the Medicare levy while spending more than $1 million each on their tax affairs has sparked renewed calls for a "Buffett rule" in Australia, under which all high earners would be required to pay a certain proportion of their gross income in tax and the Medicare levy whatever their deductions. The rule is named after billionaire American investor Warren Buffett, who in 2011 said it was wrong that he should pay less tax, as a proportion of income, than his secretary. That year then president Barack Obama proposed a minimum tax on the 0.3 per cent of Americans making more than $1 million a year. They would still have been able to claim legitimate expenses as deductions, but they wouldn't be able to reduce their tax payments below 35 per cent of their pre-deduction income. In Australia the idea has been taken up by the Greens, who went to the 2016 election promising a minimum tax rate of 35 per cent on the 1 per cent of Australians earning more than $300,000 a year.

Greens Treasury spokesman Peter Whish-Wilson was outraged when shown the Tax Office data. "Currently we have a system where the government is heavying Centrelink recipients for false debts of a few thousand dollars while a wealthy few are getting away with claiming a million dollars each in tax deductions for paying their accountant to exploit gaps in the tax laws," he said. "The Greens took a Buffett rule to the last election, and we will take it to the next. Labor grassroots members want their party to do the same, but it inexplicably has ruled it out. "If Scott Morrison wants to raise revenue to address budget shortfalls then surely there would be no more popular way of doing it than closing these ridiculous loopholes." The Treasurer was unavailable for comment.