Rebel Editor January 12, 2021

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With an unexpectedly strong sales result for 2020, Toyota has announced it will hand back millions of dollars in JobKeeper payments.

Toyota has announced it will return more than $18 million in JobKeeper payments it received throughout 2020.

The Herald Sun reports the decision was made following a strong sales annual result for the Japanese car company, with nearly one-in-four of every new car sold in Australia wearing a Toyota badge throughout December 2020.

Annual results were also strong for the brand, with 22.3 per cent of all new cars sold being a Toyota.

“Our situation now, on the basis of the last quarter and looking forward into next year, has normalised so we’ve been talking to the ATO and we’re actually going to hand that money back,” Toyota Australia President and CEO Matthew Callachor told the Herald Sun.

“We think it’s the right thing to do.”

MORE: Toyota HiLux tops the charts for the fifth year in a row

Above: Toyota Australia President and CEO Matthew Callachor.

It was a different story earlier in 2020, with Toyota’s sales down more than 30 per cent year-on-year – a devastating result at the time. But the company fared much better than the rest of the new-car industry, which reported a sales decline of nearly 50 per cent.

The downturn in revenue meant Toyota was eligible for the Federal Government’s JobKeeper scheme, subsidising employees’ salaries during a precarious period for the business.

With the company ending the year with a strong sales result, management decided it would pay the Government back the $18 million provided through the program – with the blessing of senior Toyota management in Japan.

Toyota took the top three sales spots for 2020, with the best-selling SUV in Australia being the RAV4, the Corolla named as the best-selling passenger car, and the HiLux ute taking out the top gong for most vehicles sold overall.

Thanks to closed international borders, Aussies spent up big on new cars in the second-half of the year, with purchases of SUVs and off-road utes surging as families planned road-trips to explore the country.

MORE: Everything Toyota
MORE: Industry sales results

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