the Pen

The media baron Rupert Murdoch is different. His News Corporation, which owns Fox News, MySpace, the Sun Newspaper and any number of other media outlets, is a master of offshore gymnastics, using all legal means available.

Neil Chenoweth, a reporter who probed its accounts and found that its profits, declared in Australian dollars, were A$364,364,000 in 1987, A$464,464,000 in 1988, A$496,496,000 in 1989 and A$282,282,000 in 1990. The obvious pattern cannot be a coincidence.

As the reporter John Lanchester wrote in the London Review of Books, ‘That little grace note in the sums is accountant-speak for “Fuck you.”’

- Nicholas Shaxson, Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who stole the world (2011)

An awesome read. Highly recommend this book.