U2: Prattling Bums Steve Novick

Let me put this as forcefully as I know how: If U2's Bono moves to Oregon, obtains American citizenship, and wins the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate, I will vote for Gordon Smith in 2008.

You can say a lot of bad things about Smith - and I have - but you can't say that he is unequivocally the most hyprocritical human being on the face of the earth. That honor is reserved for Bono.

Today's New York Times reports that U2 and the Rolling Stones are among the world's worst abusers of Dutch tax shelters. The accounting is complex, but basically, to avoid paying British and Irish taxes, the Stones and U2 shift assets and income to the Netherlands. In U2's case, by the way, their net worth is estimated at about $900 million.

Bono, of course, spends his free time going around the world babbling that wealthy countries should forgive third-world debt. Which means he's asking American and European taxpayers to pick up the tab. Now we learn that conveniently, he himself likes to avoid paying taxes.

As the Times reported:

“Ethically in my opinion, Bono’s tax arrangements are entirely inconsistent with his calls upon government to support anti-poverty drives,” said Richard Murphy, who runs Tax Research LLC, a research institute based in Norfolk, England, and was one of three co-authors of the SOMO report on Dutch tax shelters. “You cannot be demanding that resources be allocated to anti-poverty drives and then deny those resources to government.”

“Bono is a worldwide advocate for greater aid to the developing world, and I applaud him for that,” said Joan Burton, the spokesperson for the Irish Labor Party’s finance unit and a former cabinet minister, in a telephone interview. “But obviously the money for that comes from taxation, so it’s very difficult to ask other people to pay tax to contribute to something very worthwhile while at the same time not paying taxes in a very modest environment.”

No kidding. Bono is saying that Mr. and Mrs. America, making $60,000 a year, should pay higher taxes (that's what it comes down to) to help out the Third World, when he's worth hundreds of millions and won't bear his share of Ireland's taxes.

I realize that the United States could significantly increase foreign aid without a big tax increase; only about 1% of the Federal budget goes to foreign aid. But as a matter of principle, it is beyond despicable that Bono would ask Americans and fellow Europeans to pay higher taxes for his cause when he's a tax dodger himself.

I'm not surprised about the Stones, who never pretended to have sympathy for the downtrodden - only for the Devil. Bono is another story.

To quote the Times again: SOMO, the research group, said the Dutch shelters affect “both the capacity of developing-country governments to supply essential services to their populations and the capacity of developed-country governments to provide finance for development in the form of debt relief and official development aid.”

The Blue thing to do is to boycott U2. Write Bono and tell him that it will be a bloody Sunday indeed before you buy another CD or attend another concert.

February 4, 2007 | Steve Novick | Comments (41 so far) Permalink: U2: Prattling Bums

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