CANBERRA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Australians owe the nation's tax office a record-high 23.7 billion Australian dollars (16.7 billion U.S. dollars).

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) on Tuesday revealed that collectible debt for financial year 2017-18 grew almost 3 billion Australian dollars (2.1 billion U.S. dollars) from 20.9 billion Australian dollars (14.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016-17.

According to the ATO, 10 billion Australian dollars (7.05 billion U.S. dollars) of the debt was subject to appeals, 1.1 billion Australian dollars (776 million U.S. dollars) was "uneconomical to pursue" and 3.7 billion Australian dollars (2.6 billion U.S. dollars) "irrecoverable at law."

Small businesses were the biggest offenders, owing more than 50 percent of the total debt.

New tax collections in 2017-18 were worth 397 billion Australian dollars (280 billion U.S. dollars), up 10.4 percent from the previous year largely on account of company tax collections, rising by 16.1 billion Australian dollars (11.3 billion U.S. dollars).

Of the 36.5 million tax returns lodged for 2017-18, 25 million were done so by businesses and 11.5 million by individuals.

Individual tax collection growth exceeded what was forecast in Australia's Federal Budget by 2.4 billion Australian dollars (1.69 billion U.S. dollars), which the ATO said was a result of stronger-than-expected employment growth.

The ATO refunded 102.3 billion Australian dollars to returnees who paid too much tax during the financial year, up 3.2 percent from the previous year.

Australia's Tax Avoidance Taskforce, the ATO's main group responsible for tracking down large corporates and multinationals who owe money, recovered 2.8 billion Australian dollars (1.97 billion U.S. dollars).