Bono: typical limousine liberal hypocrite

It isn’t just Bono’s U2 who are talking through their hat about tax avoidance

What is surprising is that the rest of the world continues to take Bono seriously. I would have thought that after the revelation that U2 moved their music publishing company to the Netherlands to cut their tax bill in half, he wouldn’t have dared stepped out of his mansion for fear of being laughed to scorn.

Here was a man who incited audiences to condemn Western politicians for not sending enough of their taxpayers’ money to the wretched of the earth, avoiding tax himself. The Edge, U2’s guitarist, sounded as edgy as a plump accountant in the 19th hole when he explained the move offshore by saying: ‘Our business is a very complex business. Of course we’re trying to be tax-efficient. Who doesn’t want to be tax-efficient?’

The practical consequences of being ‘tax-efficient’ are many. If you say you care about Africa, why are you paying fees to international money movers who encourage Africa’s ‘tax-efficient’ kleptomaniacs to hide their loot in tax havens? You are also forcing fellow citizens, who didn’t make U2’s estimated $110m in 2005, to pick up the bill, not only for foreign aid, but for education, health, law and order and defence.

And all the time while others suffer on your behalf, you maintain that you are behaving reasonably. (‘Who doesn’t want to be tax-efficient?’ as the Edge said.) The members of U2 aren’t the only humbugs. Less noticed than the legal arguments over the ownership of Bono’s hat was a loud assault on Labour’s attempts to make the wealthy pay their taxes. The press, most notably the Times, spent the week insisting that Gordon Brown must listen to the City or pay the price. The CBI said the relationship between the Revenue and Customs and the financial sector has ‘deteriorated’ because of ‘attacks on previously accepted tax practices on the pretext of clamping down on anti-avoidance measures’.

Bono, Tax Avoider

A familiar paradox about leftist celebrities in the entertainment industry is that their embrace of progressivism almost never includes a wholehearted embrace of progressive taxation, i.e., the principle that the richer you get, the larger the percentage of your income you ought to pay in taxes. The latest example is U2’s Bono, a committed and unusually sophisticated anti-poverty crusader who is taking surprisingly little heat for the decision by his band, U2, to relocate its music-publishing business from Ireland to the Netherlands in order to shelter its songwriting royalties from taxation.

The only thing I can add is my schadenfreude at seeing the Great Irishman cut off at the knees by two Nice White Fellows.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on Friday, November 10, 2006 at 12:37 AM in Liberalism & the LeftMediaPopular Culture
Comments (13) | Tell a friend

Comments:

1

Posted by Bo Sears on November 10, 2006, 02:09 AM | #

“The only thing I can add is my schadenfreude at seeing the Great Irishman cut off at the knees by two Nice White Fellows.”

I love that word shadenfreude. It’s now an everyday occurence supported by happenings all around us as those who preached to us are suffering the predictable consequences of their nostrums and tikun olem. In fact when we create our banner, instead of something like “Don’t tread on me,” we may want to emblazon, “Shadenfreude Forever!”

2

Posted by Amalek on November 10, 2006, 08:23 AM | #

Why shouldn’t Bono retain as much as possible of his own money, so he can dispose of it as he wishes—charitably or otherwise—instead of being mulcted to support an ‘international development’ bureaucracy channelling his euros to foreign tyrants?

3

Posted by Retew on November 10, 2006, 08:39 AM | #

If I remember correctly, Ireland is a net gainer in terms of the funding it both receives from and contributes to the European Union and has certainly grown a lot richer over the last twenty years as a result of EU membership.

I have some sympathy with the view expressed by Amalek above, but what strikes me as curious is Bono’s apparent silence on the issue of the rate of taxation taxation levied by the Irish government. I don’t recall British rock stars in the 1970s (Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin springs to mind) having similar qualms about expressing their feelings regarding the punitive rates of taxation levied by the then Labour government.

4

Posted by Lurker on November 10, 2006, 09:46 AM | #

Bono may want to protect his euros from foreign tyrants grubby hands but then he shouldnt be lecturing me on handing over my cash to “make poverty history”. Youve got more than me Mr Hewson, so you first.

5

Posted by Al Ross on November 10, 2006, 10:00 AM | #

That old rogue Charles Haughey was the Irish PM who introduced the Inland Revenue amendments which exempted those artists earning incomes through creative endeavours from income tax. So Bono will not pay tax on his songwriting royalty income, but would have been tax-liable for his share of music-publishing earnings had those operations remained in Ireland.

Back in the Harold Wilson days when earned income was taxed at 83% and unearned income at 98%, the Beatles recorded their protest song, Taxman. It had about as much effect as their anti-immigration number, Get Back.

6

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on November 10, 2006, 04:00 PM | #

Why shouldn’t Bono retain as much as possible of his own money, so he can dispose of it as he wishes—charitably or otherwise—instead of being mulcted to support an ‘international development’ bureaucracy channelling his euros to foreign tyrants?

Ehehehe.  Maybe because he spends his free time shilling for said tyrants?

7

Posted by Andrew on November 10, 2006, 05:19 PM | #

Bone Head ONO is here in Australia on a concert tour, undoubtedly raising funds for: Freedom Fighters over seas; or the Poor IQ and intellectual repugnant of the world: or to satisfy his own ineptitude and Intelligence with money that his own ego immersed in guilt can not elevate;
What an absolute irrelevant wanker Bone Head OnO, he has even offered talks and advice to PM John Howard to put him in line , and if that is not a ego in overture, then he must consider himself to be the New Mohammad ; The prophet of Idiots in our language and bares the Nick name of Twin Dicks; It is not possible to become that blind and stupid playing with one.

8

Posted by Al Ross on November 10, 2006, 06:08 PM | #

In reciprocation, perhaps Russell Crowe can visit Dublin to offer the Irish Prime Minister (or in Denis Thatcher’s parlance, the Teasock) some advice on anger management.

9

Posted by JB on November 11, 2006, 03:20 PM | #

I dream of a world where all the humans can have enough money to buy Bono’s brand clothes


http://www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/bono031805.cfm

You’ll need rock-star wages to pay for the new “conscious commerce” collection of jeans, hemp jackets and organic cotton tops from Bono and his anti-nukes activist wife, Ali Newson.

Sold under the label of Edun at Saks and Barneys, the duo’s line - made by fairly compensated adults in Africa and South America - starts with $55 logo T’s and goes up to $320 for a rumpled cream hemp blazer for men.

A casual outfit of jeans, a cotton camisole and a blouse totals $435 - more than five times a comparable look from bargain mecca H&M, which also touts its anti-sweatshop, fair-wage labor practices.

Several Saks shoppers suffered sticker shock over the $175 blouse yesterday.

10

Posted by Devon Haverly on November 27, 2006, 07:52 PM | #

Hypocrits, hmmm, yes.
We are “all” hypocrits Mostly because we are all humans. Without hypocrasy there would be no judgement, without judgement. no order. Just a thought. Dev

11

Posted by hypocrite on May 17, 2008, 10:35 AM | #

Ah, the mighty Bono, (top of the morning to u) the mighty Poverty campaigner, the multi-millionaire, the one who’s got houses all over the world

The very one who’s just been criticised by Christian aid for using off shore bank accounts.

The very person who doesn’t want to paid tax, but yet on the other hand puts pressure on governments all over the world to increase the aid to his Africa, but he, himself doesn’t want to pay for it, why should anyone want to go on listening to u?

The very person who using private transport to get around the world, where his Africa, will be the first place to feel the affects of climate change?

Ah, cant see the hypocrisy in there, can u?

12

Posted by ben tillman on June 25, 2008, 11:34 PM | #

The Edge, U2’s guitarist, sounded as edgy as a plump accountant in the 19th hole when he explained the move offshore by saying: ‘Our business is a very complex business. Of course we’re trying to be tax-efficient. Who doesn’t want to be tax-efficient?’

Ha - Edge is the Jew in the band.

13

Posted by Bill on August 23, 2008, 11:31 AM | #

As a serious capitalist who is comfortably middle class and saved very well, I absolutely hate limousine liberals such as Bono, Obama, and Madonna. They pledge to destroy the dream of average people to create wealth but they refuse to take the vow of middle class and give their wealth away.

Those people are as dangerous as Bible thumpers and Koran thumpers who want to manufacture Armagadden and claim it was their imaginary friend’s will.

Caught in the middle of those evil leftists and right wingers are ordinary people. We have the power to banish those extremists to obscurity if we choose to use it. Here’s hoping that day will come fast.

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