It’s a staple of our media: indignation at the rich not paying their fair whack of tax. But aren’t media types rich? Do they not play the tax deduction game? Are they without sin in this area?

When the media gets het up about tax, I always look for disclosure from the highly paid executives, owners and presenters about paying their fair wack.

It’s one thing to be rightly indignant about tax rorts, but it’s a another to be using the legit ones to cut your tax bill. After all, it’s what much of the current debate and argument is all about: the ability of the rich and wealthy to play the tax game.

There was Tuesday’s Australian selling the low tax story thanks to a study from the eccentric Melbourne Institute.The story led the paper. All very predictable and in tune with the noise coming from the Prime Minister and Malcolm Turnbull.

But last night Nine Network’s A Current Affair weighed in with a shock horror story based on the Melbourne Institute report and the splash on page one of The Australian. And a predictable load of tosh it was.

Yes the rich do reduce their tax obligations. There’s no news in that. Just ask the owner of the Nine Network, one Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer who is on record as telling a Parliamentary inquiry in 1991 that anyone who didn’t minimise their tax needed their head read.

Dividend franking (actually dividend imputation) is one popular method that millions of taxpayers of all sizes (corporate and individual) use to reduce their tax payments. Not all taxpayers using the franking credits are among the rich of this country.

The Nine Network has just financed next year’s production of McLeod’s Daughters through a tax driven scheme that was advertised extensively in June and marketed at people with high tax payments who were seeking legitimate ways to reduce their tax bills.

Nine teamed with Macquarie Bank to fund a number of movies, raising around $9 million from taxpayers to finance what turned out to be a couple of hits and a collection of duds. At least one series of McLeod’s Daughters was funded in this way.

Then there’s the high income earning tax payer in ACA host, Ray Martin. In the past he invested through the late Rene Rivkin in companies like offset Alpine and Abednego Nickel. Our Ray earns more than a million dollars a year at Nine and he’s in the top tax bracket.

Meanwhile, at The Oz, there are quite a few people, like Editor, Michael Stutchbury and Editor in Chief, Chris Mitchell, who would be paid $200,000 a year or more, which puts them in the top 3% of tax payers.

So why can’t we have a declaration from all these media types as to whether they pay their fair share of tax, without resorting to legal lurks to reduce their tax, when their papers, TV shows or radio programs wax lyrical on tax?

Kerry Packer and his son James do not take a salary from PBL, just dividends: all $130 million or so (in 2005), which are full franked and which reduces the tax bill of his private company, Consolidated Press. That’s all legal.

It would have been great to have seen ACA last night, and yesterday’s Australian (and today’s because there’s a follow up), ask if the owner, Rupert Murdoch pays his full wack of tax in Australia, or the US.

After all, fair’s fair. You can’t blame the tax system or the rich taxpayers if you, your employer or proprietor are in their, all with their noses in the trough of legit deductions.