February 15, 2011 10:28 am ET by Sarah Pavlus
According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation -- the parent company of Fox News -- "has been forced to pay the [Australian Capital Territory] government $77 million in taxes and penalties after an alleged tax avoidance scheme unravelled."
The payment was reportedly "noted in the [Australian Capital Territory]
midyear budget update as duties on 'shares and marketable securities.'"
From the article:
The Rupert Murdoch media empire paid the money late last year in a secret settlement, two years after being taken to court by ACT tax authorities who demanded $84 million in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest.
[...]
A News Corporation spokesman said yesterday the case had been settled confidentially and declined to comment further.
The ACT government also made no comment, citing the territory's secretive tax laws.
But documents reveal how the commissioner for ACT revenue, Graeme Dowell, and his officials untangled a web of transactions between Murdoch-controlled companies in Victoria, Queensland and as far away as the North Atlantic tax haven of Bermuda.
The trail reaches back to 2004, when the territory claimed it was owed duty on the transfer of nearly $9 billion worth of shares in a former territory-registered Murdoch company, Karlholt, as part of the restructure of the media mogul's empire.
You can read more about it here and here.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201102150010
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