Emma Alberici corporate tax story had nine errors of fact, omission

The ABC has released a timeline on Emma Alberici’s corporate tax story, detailing its errors of fact and omissions.

Emma Alberici’s corporate tax story held a number of errors and omissions, the ABC has said.

Emma Alberici’s news story on corporate tax rates contained nine errors of fact and omissions, the ABC said today.

And the analysis story was removed for nearly a week because the ABC could not determine how long it would take to rewrite, the corporation has told a Senate Estimates communications committee.

“It was assessed that the story was not consistent with the ABC’s editorial standards as it contained factual errors and omissions of fact. As rewriting the story would take an indefinite amount of time, it was decided that it should be removed,” the ABC said in written responses to questions.

“The decision was made in consultation with the Deputy Director News, the Editorial Director and the Editorial Policies Manager (News).”

The ABC also laid out a timetable that showed the corporation news managers raised concerns about the stories, which discussed corporate tax avoidance, at 7.06am on Wednesday February 14, about two hours after they were published and hours before written complaints were sent by the prime minister’s office, the treasurer’s office and business leaders.

The ABC found fault with the headline on one article: “Tax-free billions: Australia’s largest companies haven’t paid corporate tax in three years”.

But today the ABC said: “Australia’s largest companies (all the top 5 and most of the top 10 companies by market capitalisation) have paid corporate tax.

“Ms Alberici did not write the headline but she was consulted and shown the headline prior to publication,” the ABC said.

Other errors included a reference to “Australia’s biggest airlines” paying corporate tax, which mentioned Etihad, Emirates and Qatar, which are not Australian airlines. But this error was introduced by a subeditor, not Alberici.

A reference to JP Morgan writing off a US fine against Australian income was not backed by evidence and “highly implausible” the ABC said.

The company Babcock & Brown appeared in a section about “shifting profits overseas” when its chief executive had previously said the income was earned and taxed offshore.

Property trusts, GPT and Stockland, were in the article without an explanation that trust earnings are not liable for corporate tax. Unit holders pay income tax instead.

The ABC said a reference to “Generous tax concessions, depreciation provisions and the ability to offset company losses against past and future profits” was unclear in its meaning as depreciation, amortisation and operating losses were not tax concessions.

It also said CSR has sold its sugar business and MYOB is not a “corporate adviser”. It was a software company.

The ABC said both articles were reviewed by the Business Editor for editorial compliance before publication and the analysis story was also reviewed for editorial compliance by the Analysis Editor. But no significant factual corrections were made prior to publication and the initial post-publication review failed to find errors of fact in the analysis article.

The corporation also laid out a comprehensive timeline referring to editorial processes and complaints received from the government.

The stories were published about 5.30am on February 14. Director of News Gaven Morris read them at 7.00am and alerted Deputy News Director, Craig McMurtrie to concerns at 7.06am.

McMurtrie raised concerns with Emma Alberici via telephone between 7.46 and 8.13 and email at 9.54am.

The Treasurer’s office, Prime Minister’s office and the Minister for Communications contacted at 5.35pm, 6.30pm and 8.15pm that day.