The ATO has just released statistics on Australia’s richest and poorest suburbs

The ATO has just released its most recent set of statistics on how Australian’s are faring financially by suburb, which occupations are raking in the cash, and which states are the most generous. 

Topping the rich list is postcode 2027, which encompasses the trendy Sydney suburbs of Darling Point, Edgecliff, HMAS Rushcutters, and Point Piper, and has an average taxable income per-person of $189,293.

New South Wales postcodes have taken out seven spots in the top ten richest list in fact, while Melbourne suburbs Hawksburn and Toorak come in at number three, Portsea at number five, and Western Australia getting a look in at number nine with suburbs Cottesloe and Peppermint Grove bringing in average incomes of $144,273.

According to the statistics, the poorest suburbs in Australia are the tiny rural New South Wales towns of Bulyeroi, located 461km south-west of Brisbane, and Rowena in the far north-east. With a combined population of only 132 people, they have an average taxable income of -$8,832.

The list of poorest postcodes is composed entirely of Queensland and New South Wales locations, with Queensland taking out seven of the dubious titles. 

When it comes to income by occupation, surgeons are unsurprisingly topping the list of the highest earners, bringing in an average taxable income of a whopping $377,044, closely followed by anaesthetists at $341,041.

Also included among the country’s top earners are internal medicine specialists, financial dealers, psychiatrists, other medical practitioners, judicial and other legal professionals, mining engineers, chief executives and other managing directors, and engineering managers. 

And as for the most generous state? It probably comes as a relief that the state with the richest suburbs are also donating the most. New South Wales has an average donation per person amount of $295.60, followed closely by Victoria with $285.93 per person.

However, the discrepancy between the state that donated the most and the state that donated the least is surprisingly small given the huge differences in income, with the Northern Territory donating an average of $130.52 per person.

Do any of the findings in the ATO’s 2014-15 Taxation Statistics surprise you?