AAP reported that a tax deal between Australia's 3 biggest miners and the federal government will save those companies more than AUD 100 billion in tax.

Mr Andrew Forrest chief of Fortescue Metals Group said that the deal struck between the big miners and Prime Minister Ms Julia Gillard would create at least AUD 100 billion tax shelter for those companies.

Mr Forrest said that the tax compromise was unfair. He said “They had every entitlement to get in there and remove the part which they considered was the retrospectively part of the tax. But in doing so it created around a hundred billion dollars of tax shelter or more, just on our calculations, that those three will enjoy before everyone else captured by the so called solution will have to pay. We can't see how that's fair either.”

Mr Forrest is backing a new advertising campaign by the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies against the MRRT. He said that “Mr Rudd had planned to produce a discussion paper on changes to the super profits tax to get feedback over a period of months and that was what Ms Gillard should do.”

He said that “If introduced the MRRT would make raising finance difficult for mining projects and the uplift factor should be raised higher than the 7% agreed to. That happens to be the cost of money at BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata, who negotiated the tax, but it's no one else's cost of money.”

Upon becoming PM, Ms Gillard made a deal with BHP Billiton Limited, Rio Tinto Limited and Xstrata to make major changes to a so called super profits tax touted by former PM Mr Kevin Rudd.

The changes included removing a retrospectively clause, reducing the companies impacted and increasing the threshold at which it takes effect. The new tax, renamed the mineral resources rent tax was endorsed by the three mining giants, but has been opposed by some small and mid tier mineral producers including Fortescue.

(Sourced from AAP)