BONO: What do you think after reading this?!

[maxdriver]

From the Rock & Rap Confidential mailing list (Rock Rap Confidential).

Letter to the Baltimore Sun

July 7, 2011

Sen. Benjamin Cardin’s recent letter defending Bono and his ONE foundation puts him in direct opposition to President Obama’s appeal for “corporate jet” owners to pay their fair share of tax (“Cardin: ONE Campaign works,” June 27). U2 are major tax evaders. I am also perturbed by Senator Cardin’s statement that Bono and the ONE campaign exercised significant influence on framing legislation in the financial services bill.

Paul Hewson, aka Bono, exemplifies the worst characteristics of Wall Street, both for excess and tax evasion. He is the major financier of Spiderman, the most expensive and lavish show ever staged on Broadway. His hotel in Ireland, the Clarence, is undergoing renovations to make it the most exclusive hotel in Dublin. He set up and has a large stake in Elevation, a private equity fund whose first act was to buy a controlling share of Forbes magazine, which celebrates wealth and over-consumption. U2 has a private jet, and Bono has a half share in a $15 million yacht, a mansion in Dublin, a house on the French Riviera and an A-list apartment inManhattan.

Ireland created a tax exemption in the early 1980′s to help artists make a modest living in a small country. U2 used and abused this exemption to amass hundreds of millions of dollars, tax free. When the Irish government put a cap on the tax exemption on royalties in 2006, U2 promptly moved that portion of their business to a Dutch tax haven. So while Bono was getting access to many of the world leaders to pressure them to double their aid budget to 0.7 percent of GDP, he himself was not even paying basic taxes. He wants ordinary people like me to pay for the causes he berates world leaders for not embracing.

Ireland is now bankrupt, and there have been calls from some government ministers for Bono to pay his taxes so the country can keep hospitals and schools open. Those appeals have fallen on deaf ears, despite the fact that Bono and U2 have extensively traded on being Irish to engender fan loyalty. While the myriad of causes Bono has taken up may seem contradictory, they are
actually consistent. They all serve the purpose of either promoting U2 or giving Bono access to power at the nexus of celebrity and politics, usually both. The recent appointment of Michael Elliott as CEO of ONE demonstrates the point: He is not a poverty advocate, he has been a senior editor at Time magazine since 2001. Time named Bono its Man of the Year, gave the band
tremendous coverage and even let Bono write editorial articles.

The ONE campaign is a lobbying group with no mandate or accountability, set up by a man who is not even a U.S. citizen. It has no relevant expertise on aid policy, let alone on the best interests of Maryland taxpayers.

As a federal worker awaiting the outcome of the debt ceiling talks to see where I will endure cuts and taxes, I am not amused by Senator Cardin’s endorsement of Bono and ONE. As a registered Democrat and someone who voted for him, I expect him to condemn Bono’s tax evasion and refuse to work with the ONE campaign any longer.

Simon Moroney, Baltimore

[I would add to this two points:

1) Bono is a major investor in the Spiderman Broadway fiasco but he is probably not THE major investor.

2) Bono's wealth would not be at issue if he didn't spend so much time in clownish posturing to make his success "meaningful." He got rich because people spent a lot of money on his music. I would in general rather see money generated by recorded music purchases, concert tickets, etc. go to profligate rock stars than profligate corporations. The real problem is that Bono uses his wealth to create pro-capitalist propaganda and promotes the TINA (there is no alternative) bullshit espoused by his mentor Jeffrey Sachs, which tells us that nothing but the present corporate-capitalist version of democracy can possibly be created. This is why Bono feels justified in meeting with Presidents and Prime Ministers in the midst of wars and never discussing such matters, even though the states he mainly deals with--the G8 states, particularly the US and UK--directly kill thousands of people every year in war, both their own citizens and others.-- D.M.]

 

[Galeongirl]

Eh, Bono isn't on this forum. He's not going to respond...


On the rest. It's bullshit. Most of it is twisted around just so it benefits the author. Yet he only tells half the truth. But we've had this discussion over and over again, I don't get why something that has been moaned about completely enough in 2006 has to be dredged up this year by tabloids and shit like this.

 

[maxdriver]

Most of what is written is from a letter that was written and submitted to a newspaper a few weeks ago. Please clarify how the author benefits...? Care to comment on the tax evasion claim?

 

[Earnie Shavers]

I was talking to a guy who works and lectures in development - very senior, experienced guy - and unprovoked he launched into a massive rant about ONE. He was mostly pissed at how it has changed through the years. He was on board with the founding of the Make Poverty History coalition, said that was all destined for great things and very much headed that way, but it's been hijacked by celebrity, the US and Africa. Plenty of people like him have bailed, apparently, and plenty of others pushed out as it evolved into this new and very different ONE beast. The third person in the conversation was the person I knew, he works for a major NGO who are partnered with ONE in as much as they supply data/information to them, and he was nodding along "wholly different outfit to five years ago."

I know that's only a sorta-related thing to post, but the line in that letter about the Time mag dude plays a bit into what they were saying, I think, in regards to how it's changed.

 

[Galeongirl]

Most of what is written is from a letter that was written and submitted to a newspaper a few weeks ago. Please clarify how the author benefits...? Care to comment on the tax evasion claim?

It benefits his opinion.

And the whole tax evasion thing is bullshit WAY out of proportion.

Ireland had a nice tax benefit for music artists yeah, U2 got along with that. It was a very low percentage on the royalties only. Once 2006 Ireland decided to make that tax an insane amount higher, U2 said fuck this and moved their royalties company to the Netherlands, where they pay regular taxes rather than the insanely high amount Ireland now wanted. PLUS The Netherlands, asides from being generally awesome, also pays WAY more of their GDP(0.7%, as the guy himself claimed is what Bono strives for, well the Dutch already pay that!) to African help funds.

Besides that, this is only the royalties part of their company. They still live in Ireland, all four of them do. They pay regular tax, income tax, whatever fucking more taxes there are. You can bet your arse that U2 have paid more taxes in the past 30 years than you and I will pay in our lifetime! And they continue to do so. How exactly is this evading taxes?

So basically any person in U2's shoes would've made this decision. Yet because Bono is campaigning for the poor he suddenly has to pay way more tax than necessary? That's hypocritical.

And besides, what mostly annoys the shit out of me is the assholes pointing this all at Bono. The tax thing was a U2 decision, a U2 business move.

Bono ≠ U2.

 

[last unicorn]

It's a good thing Edge answered to this article and not Bono, otherwise it would have looked a bit over-sensitive and whiney.

As for the tax thing, I have stopped taking part in any arguments about this issue because I don't know the details and don't want to talk about what I feel is the bands' decision and no one elses' business. I feel U2 are paying more than enough taxes around the world, but it may have been an unfortunate decision given Bono's reputation as a political campaigner. I think it was the management's decision and affects only part of the U2 company, i. e. the publishing. However, as I said before I don't know enough about this issue for a real argument. It's silly that people are only pointing out Bono as if he WAS U2, but that is to be expected giving his celebrity.

To be honest, I don't care much about this issue, because I'm more than happy to be able to reduce the amount of taxes I have to pay in my own little way, that's what affects me, not some rockband's money.

 

[david]

Someone posted this on the New York Times website many years ago when this old issue was brought up:

The issue, at base, is whether someone, anyone, has a responsibility to support the government of their native land. The answer, morally, is yes, within reason. (The old American tax rate that saw some movie stars paying up to 90% of their income was a but much, wouldn’t you say?) Thousands of corporations have answer this question with a resounding no. There is no social responsibility, to government or country, anywhere it is not required and enforced.

Royalities are an unusual source of income. Most people, 99% or higher, I would guess, will never see a penny through royalities in their lives. Rock singers, movie actors, football players and so forth face the reality that, someday, perhaps soon, they will no longer have primary income and royalities could be their only way of sustaining themselves through the second half, or so, of their lives. If Bono and U-2 are paying taxes in Ireland, and living there, it doesn’t seem so terrribly aweful to me if they want to protect some portion of their income.

 

[gvox]

the Netherlands, where they pay regular taxes

Is this really the case however? From what I understand, it's relatively simple to structure it so that you don't pay any tax, or very very little, at least, in the Netherlands.

Otherwise, why not base it in one of the countries where they truly earn the majority of these revenues ie the US? Canada? England? The obvious answer is because those are countries where the taxes are just as "insane" (not really, 17-25% is a fairly normal rate) as Ireland's.

The reality is they're likely paying very little, if any, taxes on the portion of the business that is now located in the Netherlands. To be sure, it's no different than any other corporation who is doing the same thing by moving there, or some other offshore tax haven. So noone's saying they're the worst thing ever for doing it..but it does strike many as a contradiction, at least ethically.

 

[Galeongirl]

The tax they pay here is indeed less than they would pay in the UK, I don't know by how much, but I do know that The Stones also have their royalties business part here. Pretty much next door to U2's. Because the tax climate here is much nicer to them.

 

[gvox]

Royalities are an unusual source of income. Most people, 99% or higher, I would guess, will never see a penny through royalities in their lives. Rock singers, movie actors, football players and so forth face the reality that, someday, perhaps soon, they will no longer have primary income and royalities could be their only way of sustaining themselves through the second half, or so, of their lives. If Bono and U-2 are paying taxes in Ireland, and living there, it doesn’t seem so terrribly aweful to me if they want to protect some portion of their income.

I agree with much of what you're saying here. But are we talking about robbing someone of their only source of income, or are we talking about someone paying say 25% tax? Will it truly reduce - at least, to a critical point - their ability to 'sustain themselves through the second half of their lives'? Really? It doesn't seem a terribly brutal penalty for an extremely rich person, wouldn't you say?

 

[gvox]

The tax they pay here is indeed less than they would pay in the UK, I don't know by how much, but I do know that The Stones also have their royalties business part here. Pretty much next door to U2's. Because the tax climate here is much nicer to them.

It's not only much nicer, or less, if you do it right it's pretty much a zero tax situation. There are reforms a-foot, from what I understand, though they still have pretty big holes a company can get through. Guess we'll see what happens.

 

[Galeongirl]

No they do pay some tax, roughly the same as they used to in the old situation back home, so yeah, it's much less than what Ireland was going to make them pay now.

 

[JoRu]

I'm just going to leave you with this quote by someone who calls himself poncke in the comment section of this article which I found to be an interesting read. Lots of well-grounded facts:

I have been a big big fan of Bono and U2 since 1987 but just a few years ago, I started to doubt him and U2 because all negativity and slander of others, saying all that crap about Bono like many here. Giving out to Bono about everything he does and doesn’t, having millions himself, blah, blah. At least he is doing something about the 3rd world problems. Bono and U2 still do great things, and make good music. Period. You don’t get nominated for a freaken Nobel price if you are full of crap.

I also tend to be a little annoyed by Bono's preaching but those who hate him, or make fun of him for that reason, annoy me even more. I don't have a problem with people like him using their fame to get what they want to benefit other people and if he wants his Maserati, then, why not?

It's just a fact that people would rather have their rock stars dive into the excess of drugs, alcohol, and models than be married for 20 plus years and try and do good to the world...

One person's (even an incredibly rich person's) private donations to a cause like cancelling third-world debt still have hardly any impact on the outcome of the campaign.

Secondly, and more realistically, Bono's personal donations are well....private. Somebody might know what he has given individually, but don't be surprised if nobody really knows. In fact, I don't think it’s any of our business...

Having said that, U2 donated $6 million (GBP3.3 million) of their own money towards eliminating poverty in Africa. Don’t take my word for it, Google it. A source says, "It would seem hypocritical if they were asking people to help the charity effort and weren't doing something themselves. “But their personal gesture is not something they are going to boost."

Besides, what Bono offers as human capital - his time, his celebrity, his ability to make people from both ends of the religious and political spectrums shut up and listen - will probably prove FAR more valuable than the dollar amount he gives, if it hasn't already.

Ireland had an artist friendly tax system but decided to change that some time ago in the way that tax relief is claimed and that the upper level is now 250,000 euros in earnings - after that a flat rate of 50% is paid regardless of how the money is earned. I do not know everything about U2's tax affairs- but suffice to say their company is based in the Netherlands and how they pay personal taxes is based upon any countries laws regarding time spent in that country and such like.

As ever many large companies can manipulate tax and be based in any country they wish - many large companies have several subsidiary companies each based in specific countries to take advantage of that countries tax laws. Many perhaps all of them do not do business on the truly global scale that U2 do.

When the Irish Government changed the Laws and set the upper limit at 250,000 euros and then 50% thereafter they must have been either stupid or very stupid to think that major earners like U2 and others would not move. U2 is not just several guys singing songs; they employ many hundreds of people - from roadies to techs and designers as well.

About their taxes, they are not tax avoiding scum; they are tax compliant in every country. Their sales are global, not in Ireland. If they sell a ticket in Argentina, the taxes are not paid in Ireland, ever.

1) U2 does pay tax in Ireland where they are residents. They also pay tax in other countries too. After all they own property and cars and are taxed in Ireland for those and for income from touring and merchandise.

2) The artist's exemption law in Ireland was tax law that said if you're a composer, writer or poet etc. then you don't have to pay tax on that source of income. It was capped at €250,000 in 2006.

3) It was a group decision made by four members and their manager. One of that group might have been advocating for governments to increase aid, either way he was outvoted.

Also, how does Bono paying tax in his home country of the Republic of Ireland help the poor of the UK?

As for you lot on here talking about U2 ticket prices, milking the fans, but then praise the likes of Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. Get yourself educated. Bands like Bruce Springsteen, Smashing Pumpkins, Rolling Stones asked 80 euros for a ticket in Ireland. That’s an absurd amount of money to ask of your fans. U2 has tickets prices from 30-90 euros, general admission floor tickets priced at €55 and at least 10,000 tickets at every venue priced at around €30, which is cheaper than their Vertigo tour, when it was 75 euros for the pit. And never have I been asked by Bono to donate money out of my own pocket. I am thoroughly annoyed by his preaching at concerts, but never did he ask me to give money. All he asked us in Amsterdam was to send a text message á 25 cents. So everyone here giving out about them asking for your money is just laughable. You heard the sound of the bell, but don’t know where the clapper hangs.

I don't think he tries to make ordinary people who own no villas or Ferraris feel guilty about not doing enough. I think people imagine that because they, somehow, feel guilty. What he does, most of the time, is try to convince politicians to do something, and that makes much more sense, because they are the ones who hold the power, not the ordinary guy who can only give a little money from time to time.

Also, about the cash... Well of course Bono is immensely rich. He is part of one of the most successful bands in the world, and has been for over 30 years now. People always criticize him for being rich and being an egomaniac.

But one reason why U2 have stayed together for so long (which I think is admirable in itself), is that precisely, Bono did not let his ego destroy it. Most bands, even great ones, end up arguing and splitting because they cannot deal with the various members' inflated ego, or because they argue about money. As far as I know, however, Bono has always agreed to getting the same amount of money as the other members even though he was by far the most famous among them (and the lyricist). And I've never heard of any major crisis within the band because of Bono's ego. For me that's a good indication that his egomania and lust for money are not that bad.

As for calling U2 hypocrites, U2 at least do something about the problems of others. But by listening to all you people, in total envy of the success of U2, it’s better for a rock band to do nothing at all with their platform and pay taxes in the Netherlands. Coz then you are not a hypocrite, so then it’s all good. Rolling Stones pay their taxes in the Netherlands, so why don’t Art Uncut go protest at their gigs? But of course Rolling Stones are Teflon, let’s not give out to them. Innocent, pure rockers, Rolling Stones are way better than U2. Utter fail. Just shows the bias and mindless repeating of hate against U2 without knowing any of the facts.

As for the Irish poverty and bankrupt status of the country, that was caused by the greed of the banks, the construction coons and the epic failure of the Irish Government. That has nothing to do with U2. Do you think U2 paying a couple of millions of more tax in Ireland would have prevented for Ireland to go default? Give me a break. Those millions would have gone into the endless pit, and rich man’s pockets, not to hospitals and schools. Ireland holds a low corporate tax, they defend with their lives. Isn’t that calling the kettle black? They lure multinationals and other businesses into Ireland with their low tax. Microsoft, Xerox, Symantec, IBM, Google, eBay, Zynga, the list is endless, all took their business to Ireland. That’s the same freaken thing. That’s a lot of jobs not offered to the US market. Why don’t you all go protest against that? Inflate balloons at the Hewlett Packard offices in Dublin 4? But when U2 moves their business to the Netherlands, you shout murder.

Irish politicians Bertie Ahern & Ray Burke lowered taxes on an oil field exploitation that was in their territorial waters. Thanks to a deal made between the corrupt Haughey government and multinational oil companies, they are now missing out on billions from that oil field. Billions that don’t go to the Irish people, but to the UK and other countries. That’s all ok, isn’t it? But being smart about your taxes is not.

All I have said here, you can find on the web. It’s not made up, its fact, except for some personal opinions about U2 and you lot.

 

[Catman]

"...there have been calls from some government ministers for Bono to pay his taxes so the country can keep hospitals and schools open."

wow, I had no idea Bono is holding the country back so much

 

[Utoo]

That's great. I'll have to save that to pass on to friends who like to bring up this argument.

 

[Galeongirl]

Thanks for that post JoRu.

 

[Rachel D.]

It benefits his opinion.

And the whole tax evasion thing is bullshit WAY out of proportion.

Ireland had a nice tax benefit for music artists yeah, U2 got along with that. It was a very low percentage on the royalties only. Once 2006 Ireland decided to make that tax an insane amount higher, U2 said fuck this and moved their royalties company to the Netherlands, where they pay regular taxes rather than the insanely high amount Ireland now wanted. PLUS The Netherlands, asides from being generally awesome, also pays WAY more of their GDP(0.7%, as the guy himself claimed is what Bono strives for, well the Dutch already pay that!) to African help funds.

Besides that, this is only the royalties part of their company. They still live in Ireland, all four of them do. They pay regular tax, income tax, whatever fucking more taxes there are. You can bet your arse that U2 have paid more taxes in the past 30 years than you and I will pay in our lifetime! And they continue to do so. How exactly is this evading taxes?

So basically any person in U2's shoes would've made this decision. Yet because Bono is campaigning for the poor he suddenly has to pay way more tax than necessary? That's hypocritical.

And besides, what mostly annoys the shit out of me is the assholes pointing this all at Bono. The tax thing was a U2 decision, a U2 business move.

Bono ≠ U2.

I'm just going to leave you with this quote by someone who calls himself poncke in the comment section of this article which I found to be an interesting read. Lots of well-grounded facts:

Excellent posts!

I'm so tired of this whole thing, too. The haters don't have the facts and I don't think they want the facts, either, because that would ruin their U2-bashing fun.

 

[dan_smee]

From the Rock & Rap Confidential mailing list (Rock Rap Confidential).

Letter to the Baltimore Sun

July 7, 2011

Sen. Benjamin Cardin’s recent letter defending Bono and his ONE foundation puts him in direct opposition to President Obama’s appeal for “corporate jet” owners to pay their fair share of tax (“Cardin: ONE Campaign works,” June 27). U2 are major tax evaders. I am also perturbed by Senator Cardin’s statement that Bono and the ONE campaign exercised significant influence on framing legislation in the financial services bill.

Paul Hewson, aka Bono, exemplifies the worst characteristics of Wall Street, both for excess and tax evasion. He is the major financier of Spiderman, the most expensive and lavish show ever staged on Broadway. His hotel in Ireland, the Clarence, is undergoing renovations to make it the most exclusive hotel in Dublin. He set up and has a large stake in Elevation, a private equity fund whose first act was to buy a controlling share of Forbes magazine, which celebrates wealth and over-consumption. U2 has a private jet, and Bono has a half share in a $15 million yacht, a mansion in Dublin, a house on the French Riviera and an A-list apartment inManhattan.

Ireland created a tax exemption in the early 1980′s to help artists make a modest living in a small country. U2 used and abused this exemption to amass hundreds of millions of dollars, tax free. When the Irish government put a cap on the tax exemption on royalties in 2006, U2 promptly moved that portion of their business to a Dutch tax haven. So while Bono was getting access to many of the world leaders to pressure them to double their aid budget to 0.7 percent of GDP, he himself was not even paying basic taxes. He wants ordinary people like me to pay for the causes he berates world leaders for not embracing.

Ireland is now bankrupt, and there have been calls from some government ministers for Bono to pay his taxes so the country can keep hospitals and schools open. Those appeals have fallen on deaf ears, despite the fact that Bono and U2 have extensively traded on being Irish to engender fan loyalty. While the myriad of causes Bono has taken up may seem contradictory, they are
actually consistent. They all serve the purpose of either promoting U2 or giving Bono access to power at the nexus of celebrity and politics, usually both. The recent appointment of Michael Elliott as CEO of ONE demonstrates the point: He is not a poverty advocate, he has been a senior editor at Time magazine since 2001. Time named Bono its Man of the Year, gave the band
tremendous coverage and even let Bono write editorial articles.

The ONE campaign is a lobbying group with no mandate or accountability, set up by a man who is not even a U.S. citizen. It has no relevant expertise on aid policy, let alone on the best interests of Maryland taxpayers.

As a federal worker awaiting the outcome of the debt ceiling talks to see where I will endure cuts and taxes, I am not amused by Senator Cardin’s endorsement of Bono and ONE. As a registered Democrat and someone who voted for him, I expect him to condemn Bono’s tax evasion and refuse to work with the ONE campaign any longer.

Simon Moroney, Baltimore

[I would add to this two points:

1) Bono is a major investor in the Spiderman Broadway fiasco but he is probably not THE major investor.

2) Bono's wealth would not be at issue if he didn't spend so much time in clownish posturing to make his success "meaningful." He got rich because people spent a lot of money on his music. I would in general rather see money generated by recorded music purchases, concert tickets, etc. go to profligate rock stars than profligate corporations. The real problem is that Bono uses his wealth to create pro-capitalist propaganda and promotes the TINA (there is no alternative) bullshit espoused by his mentor Jeffrey Sachs, which tells us that nothing but the present corporate-capitalist version of democracy can possibly be created. This is why Bono feels justified in meeting with Presidents and Prime Ministers in the midst of wars and never discussing such matters, even though the states he mainly deals with--the G8 states, particularly the US and UK--directly kill thousands of people every year in war, both their own citizens and others.-- D.M.]

Your balloon stunt at glastonbury was pretty weak bro.

This is just the finger-pointing garbage that people often make against those who effect change. They tend to feel guilty about their own lack of action or empathy towards causes, so they tear down those who do something. No-one is beyond reproach, and any set of circumstances can be manipulated and argued to make someone look bad, but the cold hard facts are that 1000's, potentially millions of African children have a greater quality of life and longer lives directly because of his efforts.

I won't pass too much comment on the tax stuff, only to make 2 points:

My understanding (and it could be wrong) is that the band members themselves pay their own (substantial) taxes as citizens of Ireland, the business that is U2 and the company itself is located in Holland for a number of reasons, not least of which is tax haven. It is a strategy 1000's of multi-nationals employ to reduce tax burdens. I will lead this into my second point:

I have just completed my personal income tax return this year. I am earning substantially above the average income. I consider myself to be extremely left of centre, and so does my family. Having said that, EVERYONE I know always feels like they deserve more at tax time, and every single one of them, if they could, would take measures to reduce their tax burden to either improve their refund, or reduce their debt. It is human nature. I don't think they've done anything illegal? And I also haven't seen any proof saying that they DON'T pay any tax in Ireland. The whole 'innocent until proven guilty' thing seems not to apply in these circumstances.

So, when you make posts like this as your entry into the forum, perhaps disguise your intentions by making comments in some other threads rather than be just the latest in a long line of shit-stirrers who think it might be a larf to join a U2 site and bitch about tax.

 

[Irvine511]

I was talking to a guy who works and lectures in development - very senior, experienced guy - and unprovoked he launched into a massive rant about ONE. He was mostly pissed at how it has changed through the years. He was on board with the founding of the Make Poverty History coalition, said that was all destined for great things and very much headed that way, but it's been hijacked by celebrity, the US and Africa. Plenty of people like him have bailed, apparently, and plenty of others pushed out as it evolved into this new and very different ONE beast. The third person in the conversation was the person I knew, he works for a major NGO who are partnered with ONE in as much as they supply data/information to them, and he was nodding along "wholly different outfit to five years ago."

I know that's only a sorta-related thing to post, but the line in that letter about the Time mag dude plays a bit into what they were saying, I think, in regards to how it's changed.

FWIW, i have a good friend who left the ONE campaign for pretty much these reasons.

 

[last unicorn]

The guy who wrote the original article IMO disqualifies himself and his arguments by obviously having a personal agenda against Bono. He seems like some disappointed, disgruntled guy who's on a mission to personally discredit Bono. That's how it seems to me, not really professional journalism, no real arguments. There have been a lot of critics who certainly had some points and whose critisicm I could, to a certain extend, understand or even share, but this guy seems only spiteful and full of rage. I don't think I can take someone like him seriously, he sounds like a child that's been denied something.

dan_smee, your post is great, I agree with you

I want everyone spitting at Bono and pointing the finger at him to show me/us, what THEY have done to change things and how they have affected lives in a positive and constructive way.

 

[doctorwho]

I stopped reading after I saw the words "tax evader". U2 or Bono have NOT "evaded" their taxes. They have found legal ways of decreasing the amount of tax they owe, but they do not "evade" their taxes. I have a house. As a result, I deduct the interest I pay for my mortgage loan. This decreases my taxes. Am I now an "evader" because I found a legal way to reduce my taxes?

Also, U2 are big, but they are no corporation. My own company, while having most of their operations in the U.S., has their headquarters outside the U.S. for tax reasons. And I can assure you, they are not unique. So don't talk about "evading" taxes when these issues are perfectly legal.

 

[BVS]

Max, will you please post your last years income and tax record please?

I'm positive you'll comply.

Thank you

 

[Mrs. Garrison]

the outrage is everywhere except in the mirror

 

[financeguy]

Ireland had a nice tax benefit for music artists yeah, U2 got along with that. It was a very low percentage on the royalties only. Once 2006 Ireland decided to make that tax an insane amount higher, U2 said fuck this and moved their royalties company to the Netherlands, where they pay regular taxes rather than the insanely high amount Ireland now wanted.

The treatment of artists' income is still quite generous under Irish tax law, as €40,000 per annum is entirely tax free.

 

[financeguy]

I'm just going to leave you with this quote by someone who calls himself poncke in the comment section of this article which I found to be an interesting read. Lots of well-grounded facts:

You don’t get nominated for a freaken Nobel price if you are full of crap.

Well, considering some of the people that have been nominated for the Nobel peace prize in the past, I'm not too sure about that!

When the Irish Government changed the Laws and set the upper limit at 250,000 euros and then 50% thereafter they must have been either stupid or very stupid to think that major earners like U2 and others would not move.

It's stupid or very stupid to think that the tax situation regarding artist exemption would have been amended without a cost-benefit analysis of the likely effects of the change. The artist exemption scheme was originally introduced to benefit small scale struggling artists, not globally successful
rock bands. Irish tax law is a matter for the democratically elected government of Ireland to decide and isn't really anyone else's business. I would venture that most Irish people do not wish to see the mega-rich benefiting from such exemptions, particularly in the current environment.

 

[Cactus Annie]

U2 are not exempt from tax and never have been. Correct me if I'm wrong but they've moved their music royalties to Holland which this so called tax evasion is just on the profit gained from their music being brought and everytime one of their songs are played on the radio. And even then, they are still taxed on it but at a much lower rate than if that was kept in Ireland.

They still pay tax on their earnings, council tax on all their properties both private and business related, VAT on goods & services, Taxation from live concerts and business tax. These taxes are payed not only in Ireland but also other countries.

I am 100% capitalist

t's stupid or very stupid to think that the tax situation regarding artist exemption would have been amended without a cost-benefit analysis of the likely effects of the change. The artist exemption scheme was originally introduced to benefit small scale struggling artists, not globally successful
rock bands. Irish tax law is a matter for the democratically elected government of Ireland to decide and isn't really anyone else's business. I would venture that most Irish people do not wish to see the mega-rich benefiting from such exemptions, particularly in the current environment.

The more you tax the less receipts you receive. Been happening in the UK for decades and it's why all out business' are moving their production to China. The town I live in used to be a bustling industrial place. Not anymore. Now all our town is known for is high unemployment and dreadful schools. There are no jobs now and nothing for the working man. And this is happening everywhere in Britain. I know even small business' take their operations abroad to tax havens because of it. Maybe they should privatize the NHS, schools, etc.

Maybe after someone dies (ie: Amy Winehouse) or hear their music at a live concert (ie:Live8) you do get an increase of sales but no one looks at Bono giving a talk on Africa and think "I know, I shall buy his music". If they are inspired then they will just give money direct to the charity.

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

Why is there no Captian Picard face-palm smiley? doesn't seem to cut it right now...

 

[gman]

I particuarly liked the line in the letter.....stating, aalong the lines of.....Some Irish ministers were calling on Bon to pay his taxes to enable Hospitals and Schools to remain open. I dont know how much they think Bono earns...but unless he earns 10's of Billions of Euros each year, that we dont know about...his contributions would be a drop in the ocean.....probably not enuff to run one school!

And again....Show me a person that would not rather pay lower taxes and i willl show you a bare faced liar!

 

[Swan269]

yeah its like if u2 paid more tax ireland would be out of the woods. GMAFB

 

[Cactus Annie]

Riots in major British cities. Why? High cost of living and poor prospects all because of a shite underfunded state run education system