There were 70 super rich Australians who earned in 2010-11 at least $1 million each but did not pay income taxes in 2012. Among the 70, their total earnings reached $194 million but because of tax reduction strategies used by their accountants, they reduced their total taxable income to $20,000 each.

That translates into $1 of taxable income for every $9,999 that was untaxed.

The ones who got richer because of the tax reduction scheme were their accountants and lawyers who earned $33 million or over $1 million each.

The mega rich managed to drastically cut their tax liability by deducting tax losses from earlier years. The 70 claimed $118 million tax losses from prior years, resulting in substantial cut in their income taxes due. They even had another $360 million in losses left that they could carry over to the coming years.

Of the 70 Aussies, 30 claimed tax advice as a deduction, 20 for charitable donations of $1 million each and another $26 million in interest bills as deductions. Ten of them reported average losses of $207,000.

However, the bulk of rich Aussies comply with tax laws with 99.3 per cent of Australian millionaires paying taxes in 2010-11 and 98.9 per cent paid a total of $8.74 billion.

The figures indicate a high rate at 25 per cent of income tax avoidance among Australians, although some are really low-income earners whose income were tax exempt. But the 70 mega rich are not considered tax evaders because they avoided taxes the legal way.