Due primarily to the publication of the Fitzgerald Report the impact of taxation on the mining industry and the amount of taxes actual- ly paid by the industry have become items of intense debate. However, the discussion has been governed more by impassioned rhetoric than considered logic. It is equally as wasteful to the economy for the mining industry as a low cost efficient export earner to be punitively taxed, as it is for the industry to be given excessive taxation assistance. A comparison of the effect of five tax- ation policies on the cash flow of a capital intensive mining project is presented. The policies considered are Liberal 1969, Liberal 1976 with and without the coal levy, Labor 1975 and Labor 1976. The mining project used in the analysis is modelled on published estimates for the proposed Nebo coal project. The analysis is equally applicable to any large mining or petroleum development.