From the SMH blog:
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has blown an $880 million hole in the federal budget after winning a long-running battle with the Tax Office over deductions.
The ATO had refused to allow the deduction, which relates to a 1989 restructure within Mr Murdoch’s media empire in which no money changed hands.
News Corp defeated the ATO in the Full Federal Court in July and the money began flowing to the company over the Christmas break.
The payout represents a significant proportion of the $16.8 billion deterioration in the federal budget announced by Treasurer Joe Hockey in December. It all but wipes out $1.1 billion in savings announced by Mr Hockey when he unveiled the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook on December 17.
Hockey did not mention the payout at the time, instead blaming the budget’s ‘‘fiscal deterioration’’ on a softer economic outlook, downgraded exports forecasts and the previous Labor government.
I guess it would not have done to have had terrific front pages for Tony Abbott in Rupert’s press running alongside headlines that the Government was coughing up a billion dollar payment, albeit innocently.
