Tax Is The Basic 'Carry Each Other' Manoeuvre : Are U2 listening?

by ec Thu Feb 26, 2009 13:12

Just read articles from Irish Times and Indo. The IT article seems to have transcribed the above video - without mentioning its existence of course.

by Madam K Thu Feb 26, 2009 14:19

U2 management are aware of action .

They must be worried... the dude in the video is a far better singer.

by Fredman Thu Feb 26, 2009 16:21

Has anyone got a read on just how much of U2's earnings have gone to aid projects in Africa, or elsewhere, for that matter? How much has gone to relieving the appalling suffering of the Palestinians? Maybe this is something Pres. Obama could take up with Bono the next time he's White House-ing.

by Mark C - Contact.ie Thu Feb 26, 2009 16:46

U2 have hit back at critics who have accused the band of setting up intricate foreign tax avoidance schemes to avoid paying high taxes in Ireland...

More at link.

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/news-gossip/u2-....html

by Gruffalo - Movement for common sense Thu Feb 26, 2009 18:09

It is on the Belfast Telegraph site too you can post comments there too if anyone wants to try and draw more attention to it.

I reckon we should have a petition to have them stripped of their residency. Probably cannot be done but it would draw attention to the fact that playing up their Irish routes is just another fake element of these clowns.

Any other actions planned?

Once again, well done folks

by Eden - Lovers Electric Thu Feb 26, 2009 20:07

What a great response 'Bono' has to the final questions, for a minute you think... hmm... hold on. Perfect.

I'm sure many people have grown up being inspired by calls for justice from Bono, I hope he listens to you and changes the business plan to something that doesn't contradict everything he sings about.

by Ciaron - Catholic Worker Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:18

"............You here him on either the Joshua Tree, or Rattle and Hum saying
"The God i believe in isnt short of cash""

This is a quote from the '80's, when Bono also had clarity on opposing U.S. wars on Central America and was willing to speak out on tour of Reagan's America against the U.S. government killing machine. He admits he has maintained silence on present wars on the Middle east and ongoing Irish complicity in them.

Probably a lot of us had a lot more moral clarity in our 20's than we have as we hitting our laate 40's - finding ourselves increasingly compromised by the culture and the decreasing "circles of certainty" we socialise in. If you're mixing in an overinflated deferentail flattering circle of clebrity where are you going to hear any truth or get a reality check?
This nonviolent direct action has been a good one for U2. It's remarkable how this small action has spun around the world. Merely google U2 at it is the fourth reference that comes up!

As celebrities go Bono isn't a bad one I've met a few celebs over the years Anthony (E.R./Top Gun) Edwards sharing the sink as we did the dishes at the LA CW soup kitchen, Martin (West Wing) Sheen getting arrested in nvda in the U.S. and giving the Pitstop Ploughshares a Presidential pardon while visiting Ireland and Casey (Shaggy off Scobby Doo) Kasem who put up $20,000 bail to get me out of a jail in Loussianna. There are good celebs out there operating in a limited compromised paradigm....just as I've met good prison guards acting in their limited paradigm over the years as well etc It's a limited paradigm where some choose not to just go with the flow and pay a bot of a price. It's adolescent to present such people as one homogenous bloc.

Today's Bono quote, "I couldn't speak out without betraying the rest of the band" ,in relation to this tax evasion effort may indicate there was internal dispute about the move to Holland? Who knows, probably never will? U2 have a 5 way 20% split which is a lot better than "Wings" whose base player died in poverty and Sir Paul who had the publishing rights has more money than he knows what to do with. In an early ioncarnation Paul Mc Cartney returned his OBE ni protest over Bloody Sunday (John Lennon over Vietnam) ...don't know how he got a knighthoood after sending his OBE back! Go figure?

A recent remark by Bono that he didn't identify as "a christian. I'm more of a fan than a member of the band!" also indicates he, like the rest of us, has moved on from the '80's.

Rather than getting into the usual lefty slagging match and personal demonisation (that may have an amount of the usual Irish/OZ "tall poppy syndrome" about it) we should make a reasonable request that U2 move their publishing back to Ireland where they are resident. This is not a radical request, it's not a revolutionary request...it's a reasonable request within the present dominant paradigm

The media talking heads (John Waters the latest) are presently circling the wagons around U2....they would rather have pot shots at poorer people doing the Christmas shopping in Newry in terms of financial evasion, they would rather target blue collar bank robbers than white collar bank embezzlers etc etc Nothing new there.

This again was wonderful piece of nonviolent direct action of creativity, humour, inclusivity that the left could learn from as we go into this dark period of economic meltdown and social upheavel that will surely follow. We've got to get over ourselves and look at the bigger picture and the historic moment that is now presenting itself.

The consumer Celtic Tiger binge is over. Ireland is slowly waking up with hangover. We can either target "poisonalities", refugees, whoever and make ourselves fell better that at least we're not them or keep the initiative.

by Blacbloc Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:37

This guy has truly revealed his colours in today's Irish Times. Praising the capitalism that he says made Ireland so successful, claiming there are very clever people in the Irish government who know how to put things right and saying that Ireland 'will have to learn how to make itself more attractive'.

Excerpt:

ON THEIR TAX AFFAIRS: “WE PAY TAXES ALL OVER THE WORLD. WE ARE TOTALLY TAX COMPLIANT”

In 2006, U2 moved part of their business from Ireland to The Netherlands where the tax rate on royalty earnings is far lower than in this country. This followed an Irish Government decision to limit tax-free earnings for artists. Prior to this, all artistic earnings had been tax-free. Now artists would have to pay tax on earnings over €250,000.

Criticism rained down on the band, and on Bono in particular, from politicians, journalists and lobby groups.

“We haven’t commented on it,” says Bono.

“And we don’t comment on it for a very good reason,” adds The Edge, “and that’s because it’s our own private thing. We do business all over the world, we pay taxes all over the world and we are totally tax compliant.”

“We pay millions and millions of dollars in tax,” says Bono. “The thing that stung us was the accusation of hypocrisy for my work as an activist.

“I can understand how people outside the country wouldn’t understand how Ireland got to its prosperity, but everybody in Ireland knows that there are some very clever people in the Government and in the Revenue who created a financial architecture that prospered the entire nation – it was a way of attracting people to this country who wouldn’t normally do business here. And the financial services brought billions of dollars every year directly to the Exchequer.

“What’s actually hypocritical is the idea that then you couldn’t use a financial services centre in Holland. The real question people need to ask about Ireland’s tax policy is: ‘Was the nation a net gain benefactor?’ and of course it was – hugely so. So there was no hypocrisy for me – we’re just part of a system that has benefited the nation greatly and that’s a system that will be closed down in time. Ireland will have to find other ways of being competitive and attractive.”

In a 2007 report entitled Death and Taxes: The True Toll of Tax Dodging , the development agency Christian Aid examined the impact of tax avoidance on the developing world and mentioned Bono as one of the people responsible. When a group such as Christian Aid (with whom Bono would have some common cause) criticise the move, that must hurt?

“It hurts when the criticism comes in internationally,” says Bono. “But I can’t speak up without betraying my relationship with the band – so you take the shit. People who don’t know our music – it’s very easy for them to take a position on us – they run with the stereotypes and caricature of us. People who know the music know that the music reveals the people, not the edifice around it. That’s why we’ve decided to draw a ring around our audience and ourselves. Outside that there’s no point trying to explain ourselves. Without the musical part it’s all irrelevant.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2009/0227....html

by paul o toole Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:10 pauljotoole at eircom dot net 086 351 2469

I lie somewhere between bemused and appalled at Bono's incredible assertion regarding his offshore accounts. The only 'hypocritical'
idea he said was that (back) 'then you couldn't use a financial services centre in Holland'. Bono implied that the absence of tax
avoidance instruments in the past is what is hypocritical, this comment came after the Debt and Development Coalition
protest outside the Department of Finance last wednesday had accused Bono himself of hypocracy, just hours prior to the release of U2's latest album.
We have a man, Bono, on behalf of U2, who says that (outside their fanbase) theres 'no point in trying to explain ourselves', regarding their avioding paying tax in a country they claim to be citizens.The problem with Bono and U2, is not that they have made obscene ammounts of money, creating immense wealth made even easier by availing of generous tax exemptions made available for struggling artists over the past 32 years in Ireland, and not that they have moved ...'part of their business' ...to the Netherlans to avoid paying tax on anything over 250,000 /year- (2007 U2 paid itself 21 million), and not because David 'The Edge' says... 'we dont comment on it for very good reason....and thats because its our own private thing'.
The problem is Bono's insistence on governments to meet mileninum goals of 0.7% of G.D.P. by 2015, through central taxation to help alleviate hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa-a very good cause. But who does he expect to pay this?. Kids working part time jobs to pay for your overpriced U2 concert tickets pay it, mothers, fathers who buy your albums pay it, grandparents who buy your t-shirts for their grandchildren pay for it. Hard working, tax paying Irish citizens, with no tax exemptions because they dont work as 'artists', and with no option but to pay into the central taxation purse, pay for it.
Not Bono, and not U2.

Nor do Bono or U2 pay their share of the 160 billion each year in Corporate Tax avoidance schemes which if paid, would allow some starving African children to see another day, 30,000 African children wont see tomorrow according to Bono himself. So if Bono and U2 would like to shed the notion that they might be getting labeled as hypocrites in the wrong, they might move part of their hard gotten earnings back to this island they call home and allow our revenue have a little piece of it. Especially in these hard economic times when essential services here in Ireland also need cash.

Paul OToole.

Non-tax exempt artist/
singer/songwriter
Recent Bono Impersonator.

by Left skeptical Fri Feb 27, 2009 16:37 paddydaughton at hotmail dot com

BOYCOTT U2!!!!

They owe so much of their success to Ireland. And what do they give us in return??
They boycott our tax system!

Ireland helped make U2 multi-millionaires, and now, when hard working people who earn just enough to live on are being told by the Govt that they must make more sacrifices (when they literally can't fucking afford anymore sacrifices), U2 turn their back on us and refuse to pay their share.

BOYCOTT U2!!!!

I would also like to call for the boycott of all the other multi-millionaire and billionaire tax exiles. Who's with me??!!

by redjade Fri Feb 27, 2009 20:27

http://BBC.com/U2

Who needs the Dublin branding when I can watch U2 live on BBCworld in London while watching from Budapest?

by resercher Fri Feb 27, 2009 21:13

Paul Mc Cartney's OBE? Don't think he ever had one mate! MBE yes! But since he's still accredited with that gong he clearly never returned it
Tho' I'm sure he twaddled on that he had! A bit like that auld windbag Roy Greenslade who publicly claimed to have left the NUJ but has never cancelled his direct debit with the union's membership department

by Blacbloc Fri Feb 27, 2009 21:33

HB on Bono and tax evasion - hard to disagree with a syllable of it:

http://www.counterpunch.org/browne02272009.html

by truth in journhialism Fri Feb 27, 2009 22:22

Brian Boyd of thr Irish Times gave Bono, Paul McGuinness and the rest of the U2 tax dodgers an open platform to voice their opinions devoid of a single 'hard' question. A paludition of their career to date with a few anicdotal sweeties for the fans to give them something over a cafe-latte to trump their friends knoweledge of this bands long and rose petaled cake-walk to eternal infamy.
It sounded more like an oration piece, played over a video montage on a big screen of the bands endless achievements as they await to alight the stage at the Grammys to pick up their lifetime achievement award.

The 'interview ' headline started off with promise, as he says at the end of the header...'Brian Boyd takes their confession'....
The meaningless viod of Bono's inane answers is exposed in great detail and Boyd dosent see fit to delve. Its little wonder that people have lost faith in their political eadership and in their icons who have strayed into the bottomless world of insatiable greed simply because there is no one there to hold them to account when they stray. Boyd gets nothing that even resembles a confession.

....'We are totally tax compliant'.....'What's actually hypocritical is the idea that then you couldn't use a financial services centre in Holland'....
'The thing that stung was the accusation of hypocracy for my work as an activist'...

It is plausible that Boyd saw this as a confession of sorts who knows. He sounds more like a long time friend or fan of the band honoured to get the 'scoop', than an 'interviewer' wishing to get to the real issues.
So the biggest grosing band the planet has ever known continues on its merry way to sellout tours of every continent- except that one their buddy GW Bush and their other friend Tony Blair destroyed in a genocidal unilateral illegal massacre, to gross ever more un-countable sums of money and unaccountable wealth.
As you count your money this year Bono, Edge, Larry, Paul and Adam-I hope that ye remember that every three seconds a child will die needlessly of starvation, which could be prevented-or so you tell us- if governments pay up some of their taxes to end this atrocity, and people pay their fair share of that tax burden not just PAYE workers.
Every three seconds-one dead kid- 'click'... Every minute -20 kids 'click',... every hour -120 dead kids'click' ,... every day -3,000 dead kids' click', ....every week -21,000 dead kids'click', ........every year -1,092,000 -dead kids...... About the same ammount that your friends killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Talk is cheap, and life is cheaper it seems,and it dosent come any cheaper than U2's mouthpiece- Bono.

by Mike - Judean Popular Peoples Front Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:09

http://gombeennation.blogspot.com/2009/02/tax-is-for-li....html
http://www.irishtimes.com/polls/index.cfm?fuseaction=ye...=8749

As a condition of their broadcasting licences most commercial radio stations in Ireland are now required (Pending any overdue European Union investigations into illegal state aid) to give a certain amount (Varying by licence but usually around 30%) of their airplay to music by Irish bands/artists. Presumably being a Dutch band U2 no longer qualify for this state imposed subsidy ?

by Ciaron - Catholic Worker Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:11

Thanx for the clarification on the McCartney MBE/OBE, from memory I thought it went along with the bannning of his single "Give Irish back to the Irish" well something along those lines.

The Irish Times interview also seemed to clarify the lack of internal dispute about the move to Holland. And a number of texts and emails received from contemporary punks, zine folks and critics of "Record Services" back in the day expose a pretty ruthless rise to the top on the early steps.

I guess that's what discussion boards are for - further clarification. So I'm feeling 24 hours older and 30 years wiser.

Once again great action by Paul and the NGO folks taking on such a sacred cow with great timing ...and as always a well researched conscise peace by Harry Browne on www.counterpunch.org The sensitivity to this humble effort by such rich and powerful people is truly outstanding. The claim to be only accountable to deferential, unquestioning "fans" quite remarkable.

The logic weirdness of the megarich bubble is addressed in Sats. Guardian by Marina Hyde "Give to the Rich to Help the Poor. An idea worthy of Bono" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/28/tax...e-aid

by Daily Mail Reader Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:47

Dear, oh dear! The Daily Mail Online today reports that there are conniptions over the BBC's apparent giving-over of so much of their air-time to promoting U2's new album. The BEEB even gave the group it's roofspace to let them play a gig on it - now THAT's original: I can recall the Beatles doing it in New York, but never mind. As if that isn't bad enough, Bono, that international man of peace, has, according to the Online edition of the paper, apologised to Coldplay's Chris Martin for calling him a 'w**ker' live on radio! Dear me! Perhaps the recent debate about U2's moving their bread out of Ireland and the less-than-fanatical response to the new album at home is taking it's toll?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1157358/U2....html

by erqwnqr Sun Mar 01, 2009 07:58

grab the torrent = steal money from Bono and the Beeb.

U2 perform on the roof of BBC Broadcasting House
Watch them play Get On Your Boots, Magnificent, Vertigo and Beautiful Day.
http://www.mininova.org/tor/2328351

by Shaner Sun Mar 01, 2009 21:20

Says there was a noisy protest outside the beeb show. Alerted me to the plethora of "Make bono history" groups on facebook .

Also the new internationalist have been quetly plugging away at Bonzo for a while;

http://www.newint.org/features/special/2008/11/20/and-t...r-is/

by paul o toole Tue Mar 03, 2009 10:45 pauljotoole at ericom dot net 086-351-2469

Last wednesdays little 'gig', held outside the Department Of Finance by the Debt and Development Coalition of Ireland (DDCI) highlighting the tax avoidance schemes that corporations use to avoid paying their fair share of the tax burden got immideate attention all arround Ireland by highlighting Bono and U2 as one of the more public figures availing of this scheme. The next day almost all the papers carried the story. Bono came out with McGuinness defending the bands role as being 'tax compliant' on wednesday night- which had nothing to do with the original accusation of 'hypocracy'. An interview was to materilaise in the Irish Times explaining their tax situation.
Bono may have been 'hurt' and 'stung' by allegations of his actions moving his and U2's business accounts offshore to aviod paying tax in Ireland-already known to be one of the most generous tax regimes towards corporations in Europe, but one thing for sure is, that as the sting of truth might hurt our reverned Bono a little, he will never get 'stung' by the taxman. That is a sting he sees only working class people should feel even though he apparently hails from Ballymun- a working class area- according to his last 'interview ' with the Irish Times.

As 3,000 kids continnue to die each day, 21% of oil and gas belonging to starving childen of nations in Africa fuel our economies, gold and diamonds taken from war-torn African nations adorn the necks, fingers, ears of the well heeled of the 'west', as corporations-including Bono and U2 deliberately hide their share of the estimated 160 billion of taxes due to Sub-Saharan Africa.....3,000 more kids every day will die.
They will continnue to die at that rate, and nothing will be done to change that unless corporations start paying their fair share of taxes, rather than hiding their so called 'earnings' in offshore accounts. And who better to lead the way and start this ball rolling than the Man Himself, Bono.

by Baggie Thu Mar 05, 2009 15:44

Despite having not paid taxes for years here and moving when they are asked to pay after £250,000 three of the band travel on UK passports.

by Me3 Fri Mar 06, 2009 00:08

Heh...

"Where the cheats have no shame" - I love it!!

I hope Harry Browne publishes the lyrics

http://www.counterpunch.org/browne02272009.html

by counterpunch Thu Mar 19, 2009 16:23

Sir Bono - the Knight who fled from his Own Debate
by Dave Marsh

http://www.counterpunch.org/marsh03192009.html

by redjade Sun Apr 19, 2009 13:02

It’s 2009. Do You Know Where Your Soul Is?
By BONO
Published: April 18, 2009

I come to lowly church halls and lofty cathedrals for what purpose? I search the Scriptures to what end? To check my head? My heart? No, my soul. For me these meditations are like a plumb line dropped by a master builder — to see if the walls are straight or crooked. I check my emotional life with music, my intellectual life with writing, but religion is where I soul-search.

The preacher said, “What good does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” Hearing this, every one of the pilgrims gathered in the room asked, “Is it me, Lord?” In America, in Europe, people are asking, “Is it us?”

Well, yes. It is us.

Carnival is over. Commerce has been overheating markets and climates ... the sooty skies of the industrial revolution have changed scale and location, but now melt ice caps and make the seas boil in the time of technological revolution. Capitalism is on trial; globalization is, once again, in the dock. We used to say that all we wanted for the rest of the world was what we had for ourselves. Then we found out that if every living soul on the planet had a fridge and a house and an S.U.V., we would choke on our own exhaust.

[....]

And, following a successful bipartisan Senate vote, word is that Congress will restore the money that had been cut from the aid budget — a refusal to abandon those who would pay such a high price for a crisis not of their making. In the roughest of times, people show who they are.

• more at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/opinion/19bono.html
need a password? http://www.bugmenot.com/view/nytimes.com

Bono artistically illustrates his religiosity with a pretty picture to help us forget how rich he is.

by Guardian Sat Sep 25, 2010 11:55

Forgive the reheating of old chestnuts, but it seems appropriate to begin with a classic urban myth starring Bono, recently described with due reverence by Viz as "the little twat with a big heart". The apocryphal story finds our hero on stage between songs, intriguing his audience by repeatedly clapping his hands together. "Every time I clap my hands," he finally intones, "a child in Africa dies."

At which point someone in the crowd shouts: "Then stop fucking clapping!"

As I say, it's an old favourite, but it was called to mind this week by news that Bono's ONE campaign had blitzed the New York media with fancy gift boxes. These contained several items, from designer water bottles to $15 bags of Starbucks coffee, as well as information explaining that poverty-stricken African children live on less than $1.25 a day – "about the cost of the cookie in this box".

To which the only reasonable rejoinder would seem to be: "Then stop spending your money on biscuits for journalists."

But let's not be facetious. Naturally, naturally, the business of activism is more complicated than that, and indeed, ONE has since been forced to remind confused civilians that it is an advocacy organisation and not a grant-making organisation. This became necessary after the New York Post revealed that in 2008, the most recent year for which tax records are available, ONE took $14,993,873 in donations from philanthropists, of which a thrifty $184,732 was distributed to charity. More than $8m was spent on executive and employee salaries.

Article continued...........
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/20...goals

by Charitable Untaxed Money Mon Sep 27, 2010 13:32

What does charity mean,in this day and age anyway,when you see manchester united football players earning billions every year..YES BILLIONS,some of these players,are only 17,im not one to begrudge,but at that age,does anyone,really have any sense..Bono and all his untaxed wealth..i say fair play to this guy,our government,would have found ways to illegally syphon that tax all for themselves..He probably had no idea,his management were squandering his money into their own pockets,which is what happens with admin types like this,they are all mooching business people anyway,that industry is so full of fakes,it's not even funny,he being at the top of it all,and with other projects running,he probably genuinely had no clue,does that make it right.No of course not.When somebody tries to do something right,why do they always get slated by media upstarts who have no responsibility to our public,who honestly wouldnt care if they started world war 11,haven't they enough freedoms,employed by government,you would want to see how tight rte and our irish government are it is disgusting.