Rupert Murdoch’s global media giant News Corporation was forced to pay an Australian state government 77.5 million Australian dollars ($77.2 million) for allegedly avoiding taxes after it listed one of its companies on the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX).The size of the payment to the government of the Australian Capital Territory, an enclave in New South Wales, was revealed yesterday by the Canberra Times newspaper.News Corp paid the money late last year in a secret settlement, two years after being taken to court by the ACT’s tax authorities demanding $84 million, the newspaper reported.Neither News Corp nor the ACT Government would talk about the settlement, but the newspaper cited documents that revealed a four-year investigation by Treasury Commissioner for ACT Revenue, Graeme Dowell, and his officials.The papers outline how they untangled a complex web of transactions between Murdoch-controlled companies that stretched through Victoria, Queensland and all the way to Bermuda.In 2004 the ACT claimed it was owed duty on the transfer of nearly $9 billion worth of shares of a former ACT-registered Murdoch company, Karlholt, in a restructure of the media mogul’s empire.The ACT initially issued its tax demands in March 2008 to News Corporation with a duplicate demand to another Murdoch company, News Australia Holdings. The territory said it was owed $53 million in unpaid transfer duties and $5 million interest. It said that listing Karlholt on the BSX, once it became clear the ACT would pursue the money, was a tax avoidance scheme that attracted $26 million in penalties.The Tax Commissioner alleged the Bermuda move was an attempt to take advantage of a loophole exempting shares on listed companies from transfer duties. But News, through lawyers Minter Ellison, told the ACT that it owed no tax and said any legal action would be ‘’resisted strongly’’. It also described the taxman’s attempts to recover the money as an ‘’improper exercise’’.That resistance quietly came to an end late last year with the hand-over of A$77,551,000. The payment was recorded as an obscure entry in the ACT mid-year budget update, described as duties on ‘’shares and marketable securities’’.It was alleged that News made several attempts to avoid the duty, first by unsuccessfully applying to transfer the company’s registration to Victoria and then by applying for a waiver on 95 percent of the dutiable amount. After that failed, the Bermuda move was made.Mr Dowell’s March 20, 2008 letter to the company read: ‘’I am satisfied that the listing of Karlholt on the BSX and the transfer of Karlholt shares were part of a tax avoidance scheme … that benefited News Australia Holdings Limited.’’