Billionaire media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's use of Bermuda to avoid paying taxes in Britain has brought a flurry of bad publicity for the Island.

A report in the most recent edition of UK-based magazine, The Economist, combs over 11 years of financial records for the 101 British companies listed as subsidiaries of his main British holding company Newscorp Investments.

It found that since June 1987 although the group has made over 1.4 billion pounds in profits it paid no net British corporation tax.

In some years a bit of tax was paid but overall that was cancelled out by rebates claimed in other years.

And in the past four years his global News Corporation empire paid just six percent of its AUS$5.4 billion ($3.5 billion) consolidated pre-tax profits in corporate taxes worldwide.

That is despite corporate-tax rates in its main three countries of operation -- Australia, America and Britain -- of 36 percent, 35 percent and 30 percent respectively. The six percent figure compares with other international media empires like Disney which paid 31 percent over the same period.

The fanfare could not have come at a worse time for Bermuda as world powers continue to probe how harmful tax districts and tax havens can be put out of business.

But the report stresses that Mr. Murdoch cut his tax bill legally.

He did that through the News Corporation group's almost 800 subsidiaries including some 60 which are incorporated in "such tax havens as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Netherlands Antilles and the BVI''.

The Economist awards these offshore centres with the dubious honour of having "secrecy laws as attractive as the climate''.

And Bermuda gets special mention in the article because it was here that Mr.

Murdoch's News Publishers company is incorporated -- a company which in the seven years to 1996 made around 1.6 billion pounds 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,'' the magazine said.

The little-known Bermuda-incorporated company was in fact the most profitable of News Corporation's British operations during the 1990s rather than any of its prestigious newspapers or satellite television businesses.

The article details some other clever work by News Corporation's accountants but it returns again and again to the mogul's "extensive -- but legal -- use of tax loopholes to shelter profits in offshore tax havens''.

But a spokesman from Mr. Murdoch's companies dismissed the attention which seemed to almost imply wrong-doing.

The company's spokesman stressed that it complied with laws and rules relevant in all the countries in which it operated.

"News Corporation and its subsidiaries, including News International, prepares and files tax returns in every jurisdiction in which they do business,'' he said.

"The company's tax returns, and payments, are reviewed on a regular basis by relevant tax authorities.'' BUSINESS BUC