If you read the British tabloids, you are constantly told who the "enemies" of the country are. They tell you it's the benefit cheats, the striking workers, the immigrants, and anyone who isn't pulling their weight for the national economy. They wrap themselves in the Union Jack and demand absolute patriotism.
But when it comes to paying their own share to keep the country running? The patriotism vanishes.
Welcome to Part 2 of The Oligarchy Files, where we follow the money. Behind the patriotic mastheads of the Daily Mail and The Sun lies a sophisticated web of offshore tax havens, shell companies, and legal loopholes designed to starve the UK Exchequer of the very funds these papers claim to protect.
The Hereditary Offshore Fortress: DMG Media
Let’s start with the Daily Mail and its owner, Jonathan Harmsworth, the 4th Viscount Rothermere.
In 2022, Lord Rothermere took the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) private, pulling it off the London Stock Exchange. Why does this matter? Because the ultimate parent company that now owns the Mail—Rothermere Continuation Limited—isn't registered in London. It is registered in Jersey.
Jersey is a Crown Dependency famous for its tax neutrality and financial opacity. By domiciling the holding company there, Lord Rothermere legally separates his family's ultimate ownership stake from the UK tax jurisdiction.
Furthermore, Rothermere himself has historically utilized "non-domiciled" tax status—a colonial-era loophole that allows wealthy UK residents to avoid paying tax on foreign income. So, while the Mail ruthlessly campaigns against state profligacy, its ownership structure is custom-built to minimize the fiscal contribution of the billionaire dynasty that controls it.
The Transatlantic Tax Engineers: News UK
Rupert Murdoch’s News UK (publisher of The Sun and The Times) takes a different, but equally cynical, approach. They aren't a standalone British company; they are a subsidiary of the global News Corp empire, headquartered in Delaware, USA.
News UK uses a tactic called "internal debt loading." Here is how it works: The UK branch borrows massive amounts of money from its own sister companies located in low-tax jurisdictions. They then have to pay high interest on those loans. Because these interest payments are classed as a "business expense," it drastically reduces the taxable profit they declare in the UK.
If that isn't enough, the 2025 Annual Report for News Corp shows they utilise a network of subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda to hold assets and intellectual property, shielding their income streams from direct UK taxation.
The Hypocrisy of the Press
The rules that apply to you do not apply to them.
When a working-class citizen struggles with the cost of living, the media oligopoly calls them a burden. Yet, when News UK spent over a decade fighting HMRC in the Supreme Court to avoid paying millions in VAT on their digital newspapers (a case they ultimately lost in 2023), it was just "good business."
These corporate entities demand civic duty from the public while structurally opting out of it themselves. They are not British institutions; they are offshore wealth-extraction vehicles posing as newspapers.
Tomorrow in Part 3: We look at the "New Right," and how a hedge fund billionaire with £1.8 billion in fossil fuel investments bought his way into the media to attack climate science.
