rihannsu
Refugee
indra said:The publishing wing of their business may well be a small percentage of their business, but if the amount was truly insignificant, they would not have bothered to move it. You can bet your ass it's a pretty hefty chunk of change.
The negative press makes it sound as if U2 has taken away money that they already owed Ireland. They have made it sound like tax evasion. All U2 did was make a very smart, legal business decision to avoid having to START paying 42% tax on their publishing income. The problem is that the Irish government was probably salivating over the prospect of getting 42% of U2's incredible publishing catalogue and now they won't get it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, find my ONE reasonably sane person who would happily pay 42% tax on any of their income when they have a perfectly legal way to avoid it.
What I admire is that U2 have refused to be drawn into any kind of arguement in defense of this move. They could defend themselves easily by publishing what they give to charity but they have stood by their belief that charity is private and will not defend themselves by publishing what they do. There is a DVD called Out of Ireland which is about Irish musicians and there are comments made by other artist about the incredible contribution U2 have made to the Irish economy with Van Morrison in particular saying that there would be no Music Idustry in Ireland without U2. Another unauthorized biography DVD has interviews with various people who talk about how U2's ongoing support of many charities is dependant on those charities not disclosing the fact or any details about their contributions. Many of their concerts over the years have had all profits donated to various charities with this often not being made public until someone leaks it. I remember seeing a throw away comment in an article about The Clarence losing money that said maybe if they didn't let their down and out friends stay there for free they might make a profit.
As for Lola Cashman, Bono said once before the book was originally published that they tried to settle things with Lola but not only did she refuse to return their stuff but she basically tried to blackmail them with the threat of the book. There was no way they were rolling over for that. He was furious about the book because she betrayed their privacy and confidence. From various comments in articles and interviews it seems that Lola rubbed everybody the wrong way right off the bat and Bono actually defended her and tried to mediate between her and others in the U2 camp so to me that makes what she did an even stronger betrayal of him. Personally she sounds like stalker material to me.
Dana