ABC’s Emma Alberici ‘disregarded’ advice of ATO expert

The bungled company tax story by Emma Alberici was published despite a two-hour briefing by the ATO.

Emma Alberici.

ABC chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici’s bungled company tax story was published after she received a two-hour briefing by Australian Taxation Office Deputy Commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn, it has been revealed.

She was accused in a stinging email from the office of Scott Morrison to ABC news director Gaven Morris of having “disregarded this advice from the leading tax avoidance expert at the ATO, who was also intimately involved in the development of Australia’s tax integrity legislation and frameworks.”

“I understand Mr Hirschhorn sought to educate Ms Alberici on the basics of tax avoidance and company tax obligations after she expressed limited ­understanding.”

Alberici’s news story and analysis piece, which wrongly claimed that Australia’s largest companies paid no tax despite earning billions, were removed and substantially rewritten after complaints from the offices of the Prime Minister, Treasurer and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield.

A senior adviser to Mr Morrison wrote to the ABC on February 14, the day Alberici’s news article was published, outlining a long list of concerns in a diatribe that reads as a 1600-word economics lesson.

Alberici’s story — which confused company revenue with profits, on which taxes are paid — was “riddled with inaccuracies, betrays a lack of understanding of corporate taxation, and basic economic and commercial prin­ciples”, the email said.

“The article does not provide any balance or counter argument whatsoever, as required by the ABC charter,” it continued, noting that Alberici had retweeted Bill Shorten’s tweet about a “$65 billion handout to multi­nationals” by the Turnbull government. “Ms Alberici’s story reveals an inherent bias and is ­activism disguised as journalism, and we would expect more from the ABC’s chief economics correspondent.”

Mobile users please click here to see the email

It pointed out inaccuracies in Alberici’s story and noted that allowing losses to be offset against future profits was “a standard feature of most income-tax systems”.

And, it said, the story showed “no understanding of the concept of carried-forward losses and doesn’t provide context by mentioning accumulated losses in prior years” — citing Qantas’s $2.8 billion loss in 2014.

The email’s revelation comes after it yesterday emerged that the ABC, which has objected to a three-year freeze on its funding announced in the federal budget, handed out more than $2.6 million in bonuses last year to its highest-paid staff.

Senator Fifield announced in last week’s budget that the ABC’s ­annual funding indexation would be ­frozen for three years from July next year. The move is expected to cost the organisation $84m.

Despite maintaining its operations were “as lean as can be”, the ABC paid nine employees bonuses of more than $50,000 each, the Herald Sun revealed this week.

ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie told a Senate estimates communications com­mittee last month that inadequate editorial resources were to blame for the publication of the articles.

The ABC admitted that Alberici’s news story had contained nine errors of fact and omissions, while an accompanying analysis piece was removed and substantially rewritten.

“It was assessed that the story was not consistent with the ABC’s editorial standards,” the corporation said in written responses to the committee’s questions.

It conceded: “Australia’s largest companies (all the top five and most of the top 10 companies by market capitalisation) have paid corporate tax.”

The ABC said both articles had been reviewed by the business editor for editorial compliance before publication.

It has since increased editorial oversight as part of a restructure.

Earlier this month, ABC political editor Andrew Probyn was chastised by broadcast regulator ACMA after commenting in a news report that former prime minister Tony Abbott was “the most destructive politician of his generation”.

The ABC declined to comment on the letter from Mr Morrison’s office.