Most CEOs do not donate money to charity, ranking lower in generosity than rubbish collectors, according to newly released ATO data – and there’s one gender that is particularly tight-fisted.

It’s worth noting, though, that for the chief executives and managing directors who do choose to act philanthropically, the size of their donations far surpasses those of our nation’s garbos.

Of the 15 million Australians who lodged tax returns for FY20, about 4.2 million (28%) claimed deductions for gifts and donations to charities and not-for-profits – giving a total of $3.7 billion.

The data tells a number of interesting tales, including that women are far more likely to donate than men. This holds true across all tax brackets and for almost every occupation group.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the higher the tax bracket, the more likely the person is to give. But a curiosity here is that some people with low taxable incomes made very large donations.

It appears while the majority of people in low tax brackets make very little money, a small share make a lot of money but donate vast sums to reduce their taxable income to almost zero – and that seems to be the case for some of the male CEOs who had taxable income under $18,200.

The real philanthropists of Australia, however, are to be found in our police force, with almost 80% of top-earning officers handing over chunks of their hard-earned to charity.

Surgeons, our nation’s biggest earners on average, rank near the middle; while waiters find themselves at the lowest end of the scale, with fewer than 10% of male waiters donating to a good cause.

Other results show:

• 51% of tax returns were from males;
• 65% of people lodged through a tax agent, 34% via myTax and 1% by paper;
• 15% earned rental income (8% had a net rental loss, 7% had a net rental profit);
• 10% operated a business in their own name (8% made a profit, 2% made a loss); and
• 79% received a refund, 13% owed tax and 8% had their returns balanced perfectly.

Sources:

• ato, How to support the charity of your choice while claiming a tax deduction
• yahoofinance, Charity donations: Who gives and who does not
• ato.gov.au, Taxation statistics 2019-20