U2 Responds to Critics of Their Deal With the Taxman

[Frank Booth]

Source: NY Times

In an interview published on Friday in The Irish Times, two members of U2, Bono and The Edge, said that criticism of the band’s decision to move part of its business out of Ireland after the country ended its tax-free deal for artists was unfair. Bono told the newspaper that “the thing that stung us was the accusation of hypocrisy for my work as an activist.”
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In the interview published on Friday, the band’s two leading members defended themselves, and their decision not to talk about the issue. The Edge told the newspaper, “We don’t comment on it for a very good reason, and that’s because it’s our own private thing.” He added: “We do business all over the world, we pay taxes all over the world and we are totally tax compliant.”

Bono mounted a somewhat more robust defense. “We pay millions and millions of dollars in tax,” he said, and went on to defend the group’s right to act as any other business would. According to Bono, it is his critics in Ireland who are being hypocritical, because the country benefited greatly in recent years from offering low tax rates to attract foreign businesses to the country. U2, in his view, is simply availing itself of Dutch laws that do the same thing for the Netherlands. As he told The Irish Times:

"What’s actually hypocritical is the idea that then you couldn’t use a financial services center 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."

Read more: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/u2-respond-to-critics-of-their-deal-with-the-taxman/?hp

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:rofl:

Who knew U2 were such big fans of race to the bottom economics? This should make them heroes on Free Republic.