[jhfsdhf]

Demonstrators call for Rupert Murdoch to be jailed over New York Post cartoon of chimp
By Edith Honan in New York
Reuters
February 20, 2009 10:00am

Leading the fight ... civil rights campaigner Al Sharpton (centre) at News Corp in New York / Reuters

Cartoon published of chimp being shot
Protesters say it was aimed at Obama
Claim it was a racist attack
HUNDREDS of demonstrators have rallied to boycott the New York Post, branding the newspaper as racist for publishing a cartoon that appeared to compare Barack Obama to a chimpanzee.

Demonstrators led by civil rights activist Al Sharpton chanted "End racism now!" outside the parent company's skyscraper in midtown Manhattan and called for the jailing of Rupert Murdoch, whose international media conglomerate News Corp (the owner of news.com.au) owns the Post.

The newspaper has defended the cartoon as a parody of Washington politics, but Mr Sharpton said it exploited a potent image in the history of racism toward blacks.

Published on Wednesday, it shows police shooting an ape and plays on the real shooting of a pet chimpanzee that went on a rampage in Connecticut this week.

One of the police officers says, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus Bill."

Because Obama promoted the $US787 billion ($1.22 trillion) economic stimulus that he signed into law on Tuesday, critics of the cartoon interpreted the dead chimp as a reference to Mr Obama, who became the first black US president on January 20.

"I guess they thought we were chimpanzees," Mr Sharpton said. "They will find out we are lions."

Mr Sharpton said he would meet with advertisers to encourage them to pull their ads and said New Yorkers would boycott the newspaper.

"You would have to be in a time warp or in a whole other world not to know what that means," said demonstrator Charles Ashley, 25, a model who did not believe the cartoon was an innocent political joke.

Others said it made light of assassinating Mr Obama, a possibility they said that worries many African-Americans.

"Just the fact that they put a monkey with gunshot wounds in his chest, it gives the idea of an assassination," said Peter Aviles, 48, a building superintendent.

Police in Stamford, Connecticut, shot and killed a 90kg chimpanzee on Monday after the pet nearly killed its owner's friend and attacked a police car. The chimp, named Travis, had once starred in television commercials and was taking medication for Lyme disease.

New York Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan said in a statement the cartoon "broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy."

[Vjwkvkoy]

02-20-09 03:35 AM

[thierabess]

Ahhhh yet another Australian who went to the US and renounced his Australian Citizenship. Funny how the best choose America over Australia.

Singaporeans take heed..............if you want what the best wants, its the US they choose.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_...e_note-Iraq-17

In 2004, Murdoch announced that he was moving News Corp.'s headquarters from Adelaide, Australia to the United States. Choosing a US domicile was designed to ensure that American fund managers could purchase shares in the company, since many were deciding not to buy shares in non-US companies. Some analysts believed that News Corp's Australian domicile was leading to the company being undervalued compared with its peers.
Asked about the Australian federal election, 2007 at News Corporation's annual general meeting in New York on October 19, 2007, its chairman Rupert Murdoch, who had relinquished his former Australian citizenship for citizenship of the USA.


Oh my..........

[jhfsdhf]

Rupert only pay 6% tax. Thanks to America. Disney paid 31% tax. The ex-Aussie is still smarter.

Rubert Murdoch the Tax Dodger
Laying Rupert Bare
TJN International , July 31, 2007

Rupert Murdoch's apparent success in taking over the Wall Street Journal is potentially negative for tax justice.

This is based on an Economist story from 1999 - updated information on News Corp's tax affairs, or other comments, would be welcome.

It looks as if Rupert Murdoch will win his battle for control of the Wall Street Journal. This bodes ill for a tax justice agenda, for his flagship company News Corp. is a poster child for tax dodging. The Economist once prodded into its tax affairs, and what it found was not pretty.

In keeping with his anti-statist philosophy, Mr Murdoch hands very little of his profits to governments. In the four years to June 30th last year, News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only A$325m ($238m) in corporate taxes worldwide. In the same period, its consolidated pre-tax profits were A$5.4 billion. So News Corporation has paid an effective tax rate of only around 6%. By comparison, Disney, one of the world's other media empires, paid 31%. Basic corporate-tax rates in Australia, America and Britain, the three main countries in which News Corporation operates, are 36%, 35% and 30% respectively.

Finding out the specifics of News Corporation's tax affairs is difficult because of the company's complex structure. In its latest accounts, the group lists roughly 800 subsidiaries, including some 60 incorporated in such tax havens as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Netherlands Antilles and the British Virgin Islands.

This structure, dictated by Mr Murdoch's elaborate tax planning, has some bizarre consequences. The most profitable of News Corporation's British operations in the 1990s was not the Sunday Times, or its successful satellite television business, BSkyB. It was News Publishers, a company incorporated in Bermuda. News Publishers has, in the seven years to June 30th 1996, made around £1.6 billion in net profits. This is a remarkable feat for a company that seems not to have any employees, nor any obvious source of income from outside Mr Murdoch's companies.

British taxpayers have been forced to pick up a particularly large slice of Murdoch's tax bill: since June 1987, The Economist reported, the group made £1.4 billion in profits yet paid no net British corporation tax at all.

Even the Economist, which seems to have a soft spot for the corrupt world of tax havens, choked on this, and asked why so many other companies avoid such byzantine offshore gymnastics to dodge their tax bills.

Perhaps their tax lawyers are not as bright. Perhaps their boards are stuffed with conventional people who would be embarrassed to shelter profits in tax havens. Or, more likely, they may conclude that there are costs to Mr Murdoch's way of doing things. In particular, the complexity of News Corporation's structure baffles analysts and puts off institutional investors.

Money men suspect that the company's profits may be based not just on the returns from Mr Murdoch's businesses, but also on financial wizardry vulnerable to changes in tax law. This may be one reason why its share price has underperformed the American stock market over the past five years. A low share price makes investment more expensive for Mr Murdoch than it would be were he an empire-builder with a more transparent business structure.

This article is, admittedly, a bit long in the tooth. It was published in March 1999. TJN does not have the resources to investigate 800 or more subsidiaries to update this story. Perhaps Rupert Murdoch has had an epiphany since then, and has decided to stop his anti-social behaviour. We are not convinced that this has happened.

[thierabess]

Yup that's why he's American and not Australian.

Its staggering how many Australians prefer American Taxes over Australian.

[Vjwkvkoy]

Rupert only pay 6% tax. Thanks to America. Disney paid 31% tax. The ex-Aussie is still smarter.

Rubert Murdoch the Tax Dodger
.

yes my biz is in america, but if i was in america i would be paying 40%++

but now i pay single digits, close to zero

[thierabess]

yes my biz is in america, but if i was in america i would be paying 40%++

but now i pay single digits, close to zero

If you own a S Corp or LLC there are thousands of deductions/credits to bring effective taxation down to 0 or Single digits.

If you are an individual then American Federal Individual Income taxes rates are almost nothing, not even single digits.

This year many Americans will be receiving money from the IRS thanks to Obama's stimulus plan

Singapore cant match that..........