This article by Bernard Keane at Crikey should anger any everyday taxpayer in Australia.
Tax dodging News Corp continues to rip Australia off — and is subsidised by taxpayers to do so
News Corp retains its crown as a champion tax rorter, yet again paying next to nothing in tax despite billions in revenue.
Next time you see a News Corp employee or contributor, or a News Corp editorial, opining about fiscal policy in Australia, or how tax revenue should be spent, or how the economy should be run, there’s a simple question to bear in mind.
How much tax has the foreign-owned Coalition propaganda arm paid in tax in Australia in the five years to 2018-19? During that time News Australia Holdings has earned more than $360 million in profits from nearly $13.1 billion in revenue.
The answer, of course, is zero. It hasn’t paid a single cent in tax.
It’s a different story for News Australia Investments. In 2017-18 it reported $291 million in taxable income, on which it paid … $201,000 in tax. And no, there isn’t a zero missing.
Admittedly News Pay TV Financing — the vehicle for News Corp’s takeover of Foxtel and Premier Media Group nearly a decade ago — reported a $27 million profit way back in 2015-16. It paid tax on that that year: $8.2 million.
So, including everything, in five years News Corp has paid $8.5 million in tax on more than $680 million in profits and $13 billion in revenue.
In that time the Coalition has handed $40 million to it in untied grants, swamping even the miserable $8 million. The net position is that off revenues of more than $13 billion, taxpayers have actually paid the Murdochs more than $30 million.
All this is because News Corp is one of the worst tax rorters and dodgers in the country. That’s why, in 2015, the ATO deemed it the highest tax risk in the country.
The recently released ATO corporate tax data for 2018-19 — well before the pandemic — shows that the US-owned News Corp earned $2.1 billion in revenue, down from $2.4 billion the previous year, but claims to have made no profit at all — in contrast to previous years when profits where sneaked away offshore.
The numbers illustrate the extent to which News Corp has nothing to do with Australia and Australians. It is foreign-owned, Rupert Murdoch is a foreigner, and the company pays no tax in Australia.
Of course, that doesn’t prevent the company’s outlets from lecturing real Australians who live here and pay tax here about what they should do, how they should live and vote, and what fiscal and economic policies we should follow.
Read the rest of the article online.
I get that some may say it is smart to take steps to minimise tax. News Corp. is different. It openly meddles in democracy, plays with the truth to serve its needs, tells us how to live our lives. Yet, it pays no tax. This alone should strip of what it seeks to do.
I think what News Corp. does re tax is un-Australian, wrong and purely selfish.
All companies have a social responsibility to the countries in which they operate. In my opinion, News Corp. is not demonstrating social responsibility in its tax arrangements in Australia.
Shame on all politicians who pass the rules that allow News Corp and so many other companies to pay fair tax.
“We don’t pay taxes.Only the little people pay taxes” – New York Hotel Tycoon Leona Helmsley.
Better accountants, doctors and lawyers. It has always been thus.
They (Big Business) consider they are the “growth” of employment.
Not unlike the Public Service who say they pay tax as they do, except the difference is that all public service money comes from the ‘productive tax” created by the job maker.
What goes around comes around. Quite simple really.