Taxday Bloody Taxday

U2 is out promoting their new album, Whatever the New U2 Album Is Called. And it sounds like some of their fellow countrymen are sick of Bono running around telling world governments how to handle their business, when he won’t even pay his fair share of taxes to his own:

Following a demonstration outside the offices of the Department of Finance in Dublin on Wednesday, campaigners continued their crusade on Friday in London.

During an “impromptu” gig by the band on the roof of the BBC headquarters, a small group of demonstrators staged a seemingly spontaneous protest berating the band for exploiting a tax shelter in the Netherlands.

Agitators held makeshift placards bearing inscriptions such as: “Bono: pay your taxes” and “Bono: don’t be a banker”. Another held a home-made sign with the caption: “We’ll downl’d it 4 free and give the money to charity”…

It is not yet clear if the protest in London forms part of a co-ordinated strategy by tax reform campaigners or if it was spontaneous. A number of prominent international organisations including Christian Aid and the Tax Justice Network (TJN) have previously criticised the band’s tax affairs since U2 moved one of its companies to the Netherlands in 2006 after the Irish government introduced a €250,000 cap on the tax exemption scheme for artists…

TJN estimates that funds held globally in tax havens could generate $255 billion (€200 billion) in additional tax revenues, enough to finance the Millennium Development Goals, a project that aims to halve extreme poverty, halt the spread of HIV/Aids and provide universal primary education by 2015, which has been endorsed by Bono.

U2 want to change the world. They just don’t want to pay for it.

Deceiver

Well Bono, I guess it's mostly "Without You".