Protest at U2 Glastonbury debut

I for one never begrudged U2 their success and I am not one of their knockers. They are a hard working professional Band who have worked hard at their craft for over 30 years. They have stayed living in Ireland and invest in the country. Indeed Bono (Paul Hewson) and The Edge (David Evans) live within bombast distance of a friend’s Martello Tower in Killiney Co. Dublin.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/07/killiney-martello-tower-no-7.html

Paul was a near neighbour on the Northside of Dublin growing up in Cedarwood whilst I lived down the road in Willow Park. I never knew him but Dublin is not a huge city and I would see him at the next bustop by the roundabout on Ballymun Avenue with a Dunnes Stores bag of records waiting for the 19A bus into town. There, like all of us in Dublin at the time, he and the guys would hang out in the Dandelion Market on Stephen’s Green, a development site which became a bit of a groovy market a bit like Camden Lock in London. We also had some mutual acquaintances and I caught some of their early concerts in the Project Arts Centre which acted as a catalyst for so much in the visual and performing arts in Dublin.

In common with others U2 have taken advantage of an extraordinary tax break introduced by Charles Haughey when he was Finance Minister which exempted royalties earned abroad from creative writing from income tax. Now this was originally intended to get writers to settle in Ireland and encourage native talent but it has been availed of by film directors, script writers and pop musicians all of whom structure their tax affairs to take the bulk of their income in royalties.


The Boys

Glastonbury organisers were accused yesterday of using heavy-handed tactics against demonstrators who tried to embarrass U2 during the rock group’s debut at the festival. Activists from protest group Art Uncut made their point by unfurling a 25-metre inflatable balloon bearing the slogan ‘U pay tax 2?’ in front of the 50,000 fans watching the band perform on the festivals Pyramid Stage. Friday’s protest was directed at U2’s 2006 decision to cut their tax bill by moving their business affairs from Ireland to the Netherlands.

Before 2006 U2 Ltd, which deals with U2’s royalties payments, was registered in Ireland, the band’s native country, for tax purposes. At the time, Ireland had an astonishing policy of allowing artists to pay zero tax on royalties. In 2006, the Irish government decided to cap the income which can be subject to this exemption at 250,000 Euros per annum. Following this change in the law, U2 Ltd decided to move their tax affairs to Holland in order to pay less tax.

Irish politicians called it a cynical tax-avoidance ploy by the world’s highest-earning musicians, who last year raked in about £80 million. Members of the 30-strong group of activists, who were aged between 18 and 35 and included a teacher, artists and musicians, said within minutes of the unveiling they were set upon by security guards, who pinned protesters to the wall and left one, 23-year-old Claudia Stevens, with a broken finger.



U2 business acumen is legendary directed by their “5th Member”, their Manager Paul McGuiness who has always directed their affairs and who takes an equal share with the band members. U2’s members are worth almost £1 billion between them through savvy investments. The band was one of the first music successes to obtain all rights to its music. Frontman Bono, 51, and lead guitarist The Edge, 49, each own 25 per cent of Dublin’s Clarence Hotel. Bono, who has a £300 million stake in Facebook and a £220 million share in media company Forbes Media LLC, owns properties worth more than £30 million.



Meanwhile, The Edge has a £30 million Californian mansion; bassist Adam Clayton, 51, has a £12.5 million house in London plus a home near Nice, and drummer Larry Mullen Jr, 49, owns properties in upstate New York and the French Riviera worth a total of £30 million. Now they are not the first band to organise their affairs to minimise their tax payments, the Rolling Stones for instance have always been a company in the Netherland Antilles, but it does sit uneasily with Bono’s pronouncements on Western Nations not giving enough to Africa.

Indeed I am worried that with Bono and Chris Martin both at Glastonbury nobody is looking after Africa. I shouldn’t have worried as it turns out Bono asked God to deputise for him over the weekend!

Here is UK Uncuts argument on their website;

http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/blog/art-uncut-its-crucial-we-send-a-message-to-bono-that-what-he-is-doing-is-wrong

Protest at U2 Glastonbury debut

I for one never begrudged U2 their success and I am not one of their knockers. They are a hard working professional Band who have worked hard at their craft for over 30 years. They have stayed living in Ireland and invest in the country. Indeed Bono (Paul Hewson) and The Edge (David Evans) live within bombast distance of a friend’s Martello Tower in Killiney Co. Dublin.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/07/killiney-martello-tower-no-7.html

Paul was a near neighbour on the Northside of Dublin growing up in Cedarwood whilst I lived down the road in Willow Park. I never knew him but Dublin is not a huge city and I would see him at the next bustop by the roundabout on Ballymun Avenue with a Dunnes Stores bag of records waiting for the 19A bus into town. There, like all of us in Dublin at the time, he and the guys would hang out in the Dandelion Market on Stephen’s Green, a development site which became a bit of a groovy market a bit like Camden Lock in London. We also had some mutual acquaintances and I caught some of their early concerts in the Project Arts Centre which acted as a catalyst for so much in the visual and performing arts in Dublin.

In common with others U2 have taken advantage of an extraordinary tax break introduced by Charles Haughey when he was Finance Minister which exempted royalties earned abroad from creative writing from income tax. Now this was originally intended to get writers to settle in Ireland and encourage native talent but it has been availed of by film directors, script writers and pop musicians all of whom structure their tax affairs to take the bulk of their income in royalties.


The Boys

Glastonbury organisers were accused yesterday of using heavy-handed tactics against demonstrators who tried to embarrass U2 during the rock group’s debut at the festival. Activists from protest group Art Uncut made their point by unfurling a 25-metre inflatable balloon bearing the slogan ‘U pay tax 2?’ in front of the 50,000 fans watching the band perform on the festivals Pyramid Stage. Friday’s protest was directed at U2’s 2006 decision to cut their tax bill by moving their business affairs from Ireland to the Netherlands.

Before 2006 U2 Ltd, which deals with U2’s royalties payments, was registered in Ireland, the band’s native country, for tax purposes. At the time, Ireland had an astonishing policy of allowing artists to pay zero tax on royalties. In 2006, the Irish government decided to cap the income which can be subject to this exemption at 250,000 Euros per annum. Following this change in the law, U2 Ltd decided to move their tax affairs to Holland in order to pay less tax.

Irish politicians called it a cynical tax-avoidance ploy by the world’s highest-earning musicians, who last year raked in about £80 million. Members of the 30-strong group of activists, who were aged between 18 and 35 and included a teacher, artists and musicians, said within minutes of the unveiling they were set upon by security guards, who pinned protesters to the wall and left one, 23-year-old Claudia Stevens, with a broken finger.



U2 business acumen is legendary directed by their “5th Member”, their Manager Paul McGuiness who has always directed their affairs and who takes an equal share with the band members. U2’s members are worth almost £1 billion between them through savvy investments. The band was one of the first music successes to obtain all rights to its music. Frontman Bono, 51, and lead guitarist The Edge, 49, each own 25 per cent of Dublin’s Clarence Hotel. Bono, who has a £300 million stake in Facebook and a £220 million share in media company Forbes Media LLC, owns properties worth more than £30 million.



Meanwhile, The Edge has a £30 million Californian mansion; bassist Adam Clayton, 51, has a £12.5 million house in London plus a home near Nice, and drummer Larry Mullen Jr, 49, owns properties in upstate New York and the French Riviera worth a total of £30 million. Now they are not the first band to organise their affairs to minimise their tax payments, the Rolling Stones for instance have always been a company in the Netherland Antilles, but it does sit uneasily with Bono’s pronouncements on Western Nations not giving enough to Africa.

Indeed I am worried that with Bono and Chris Martin both at Glastonbury nobody is looking after Africa. I shouldn’t have worried as it turns out Bono asked God to deputise for him over the weekend!

Here is UK Uncuts argument on their website;

http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/blog/art-uncut-its-crucial-we-send-a-message-to-bono-that-what-he-is-doing-is-wrong

BHS – British Home Savings?

Philip Slasher Green

As the LibCon Coalition implodes before a horrified electorate, including the last remaining 11 Lib Dem supporters, who never voted for the policies they are threatening to implement PR Dave can’t resist the eye catching gesture of recruiting the most unlikely figure of Sir Philip Green to advise on cutting expenditure. Sir Philip, owner of clothing retailer Arcadia Group, will scrutinise expenditure from the past three years to try to identify where savings can be made. The conclusions from the external review will feed into the Comprehensive Spending Review due to be completed in October.

Announcing the appointment, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: “We are extremely fortunate to have Sir Philip, with his immense commercial experience and of course his fantastic track record at managing large organisations, on board. “Sir Philip has made clear to the Government the importance of his business remit which has always been that efficient operating is different from cost cutting and removing jobs.”


Philip's 206 ft Benetti "Lionheart" registered in the Cayman Islands. He also has a 105 ft "speedboat" Lionchaser

The billionaire retail tycoon, who will be supported by a team of civil servants and report to Maude and Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander, said: “I will give this efficiency review my very best effort knowing how hugely important it is to the recovery of the country.“I want to help focus, motivate and energise to achieve these efficiency savings. It is these actions that will re-start growth in the UK.”

Alexander said: “The Spending Review is about promoting growth, rebalancing the economy and completely re-evaluating the Government's role in providing public services. Sir Philip Green's efficiency review will play an important role as we totally re-think how the Government spends taxpayers' money.“Tough decisions need to be taken in order to ensure that Britain lives within its means. By being prepared to do things differently, we can ensure that this process will enable us to get more for less, and support our front line services.”



Now judging by this sybarite’s lifestyle “cutting” and “expenditure” have never been key words associated with him. Sir Philip, 58, owns more than 2,000 shops across Britain. His empire, which also includes BHS, is estimated to make up 12% of the nation's clothing retail market. When he turned 50, he received a solid gold Monopoly set from his wife Tina, featuring the stores he had acquired, including Top Shop, BHS and Miss Selfridge. To mark the occasion, Green chartered a private jet to fly 200 guests, including journalists and business associates, to Cyprus for a three-day toga party at a cost of £50m, and a few years later he spent further millions on his son's bar mitzvah, hiring Destiny's Child to provide the entertainment at the achingly stylish Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat. He is Britain's fourth richest man, with a total of 2,300 shops in the UK and assets worth around £3.61bn. Together, the companies boast 40,000 employees, 2,500 outlets and $5.1 billion in sales. He lives part-time in the Dorchester Hotel in London while his wife, Tina, and two children reside in a Monte Carlo penthouse. Philip is a commuter, flying the tedious 1 hour 30 minute, 580 nm commute from Monaco in his 12 seater Gulfstream 550 Jet, range 6,800 nm. This of course gives him a great insight into the plight of the common people, an insight shared by the 22 millionaires (out of 26) in the LibCon cabinet.


Sir Philips Gulfstream 550 jet registered in the British Virgin Islands

Sir Philip is also – I must express this with care – a man who is careful to arrange his own finances so as not to needlessly benefit the common weal. In 2005, for example, the man whom Robert Peston (The BBC Business Reporter) dubs both a lovable rogue and the king of jackpot capitalism paid himself a tax-free dividend of £1.2bn from the Arcadia retailing business. Technically the dividend went to his Monaco-resident wife, in order to avoid UK Treasury attention, a tax saving to Sir Philip that has been estimated at £300m. That one dividend payment, as Mr Peston has written, was equivalent to what 54,000 people on average earnings would earn in a year, would build around 10 secondary schools capable of educating some 13,000 young people.

The BBC’s Money Programme calculated that Green and his family had ’saved themselves’ £300m from their £1.2bn salary by living for a part of the year in Monaco, whose residents don’t pay income tax.Standing up for such paupers used to be the point of a Labour government. Even if it could not force the likes of Green to pay their fair share, it retained the power to shun them and make it clear that those who don’t contribute towards their country can’t expect their country to be grateful.


Phil's normal hood of Monaco - Once described by Somerset Maugham as "A sunny place for shady people."

Amazingly, under Tony Blair even modest defiance of the plutocrats was beyond Labour now and Green, received a knighthood for ’services to the retail industry’. If I were in the Inland Revenue, I would fret about the moment when the little people who stupidly still pay taxes realise that the state is treating them like fools. It insists that they must hand over their earnings on pain of punishment by the courts, while inviting Philip Green to Buckingham Palace to be honoured by the Queen.

If Billionaires like Philip Green want to help society they should pay taxes and stop screwing workers. There are too many Great British Patriots who are too patriotic to pay taxes while living in their little islands in the sun, or in Belize. They are called Conservative Party donors. The whole Non-Dom tax status is nonsense. There is no such thing as an American Tax exile – If you are an American citizen you pay American Federal taxes on your world income no matter where you live. Don’t take my word on Philip Green’s unsuitability to take part in this gimmicky review, this is what Britain’s most trusted economic commentator and trusted politician once said;

"I have no time for billionaire tax dodgers who step off the plane from their tax havens into the country where they make their money and have the effrontery to tell us how to vote and how to run our tax policies. If some of them came onshore and paid their taxes it would make a useful dent in the budget deficit."

Fine words from Vince Cable. Now stand by them.


The man who banked £1.2 Billion tax free in Monte Carlo

BHS – British Home Savings?

Philip Slasher Green

As the LibCon Coalition implodes before a horrified electorate, including the last remaining 11 Lib Dem supporters, who never voted for the policies they are threatening to implement PR Dave can’t resist the eye catching gesture of recruiting the most unlikely figure of Sir Philip Green to advise on cutting expenditure. Sir Philip, owner of clothing retailer Arcadia Group, will scrutinise expenditure from the past three years to try to identify where savings can be made. The conclusions from the external review will feed into the Comprehensive Spending Review due to be completed in October.

Announcing the appointment, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: “We are extremely fortunate to have Sir Philip, with his immense commercial experience and of course his fantastic track record at managing large organisations, on board. “Sir Philip has made clear to the Government the importance of his business remit which has always been that efficient operating is different from cost cutting and removing jobs.”


Philip's 206 ft Benetti "Lionheart" registered in the Cayman Islands. He also has a 105 ft "speedboat" Lionchaser

The billionaire retail tycoon, who will be supported by a team of civil servants and report to Maude and Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander, said: “I will give this efficiency review my very best effort knowing how hugely important it is to the recovery of the country.“I want to help focus, motivate and energise to achieve these efficiency savings. It is these actions that will re-start growth in the UK.”

Alexander said: “The Spending Review is about promoting growth, rebalancing the economy and completely re-evaluating the Government's role in providing public services. Sir Philip Green's efficiency review will play an important role as we totally re-think how the Government spends taxpayers' money.“Tough decisions need to be taken in order to ensure that Britain lives within its means. By being prepared to do things differently, we can ensure that this process will enable us to get more for less, and support our front line services.”



Now judging by this sybarite’s lifestyle “cutting” and “expenditure” have never been key words associated with him. Sir Philip, 58, owns more than 2,000 shops across Britain. His empire, which also includes BHS, is estimated to make up 12% of the nation's clothing retail market. When he turned 50, he received a solid gold Monopoly set from his wife Tina, featuring the stores he had acquired, including Top Shop, BHS and Miss Selfridge. To mark the occasion, Green chartered a private jet to fly 200 guests, including journalists and business associates, to Cyprus for a three-day toga party at a cost of £50m, and a few years later he spent further millions on his son's bar mitzvah, hiring Destiny's Child to provide the entertainment at the achingly stylish Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat. He is Britain's fourth richest man, with a total of 2,300 shops in the UK and assets worth around £3.61bn. Together, the companies boast 40,000 employees, 2,500 outlets and $5.1 billion in sales. He lives part-time in the Dorchester Hotel in London while his wife, Tina, and two children reside in a Monte Carlo penthouse. Philip is a commuter, flying the tedious 1 hour 30 minute, 580 nm commute from Monaco in his 12 seater Gulfstream 550 Jet, range 6,800 nm. This of course gives him a great insight into the plight of the common people, an insight shared by the 22 millionaires (out of 26) in the LibCon cabinet.


Sir Philips Gulfstream 550 jet registered in the British Virgin Islands

Sir Philip is also – I must express this with care – a man who is careful to arrange his own finances so as not to needlessly benefit the common weal. In 2005, for example, the man whom Robert Peston (The BBC Business Reporter) dubs both a lovable rogue and the king of jackpot capitalism paid himself a tax-free dividend of £1.2bn from the Arcadia retailing business. Technically the dividend went to his Monaco-resident wife, in order to avoid UK Treasury attention, a tax saving to Sir Philip that has been estimated at £300m. That one dividend payment, as Mr Peston has written, was equivalent to what 54,000 people on average earnings would earn in a year, would build around 10 secondary schools capable of educating some 13,000 young people.

The BBC’s Money Programme calculated that Green and his family had ’saved themselves’ £300m from their £1.2bn salary by living for a part of the year in Monaco, whose residents don’t pay income tax.Standing up for such paupers used to be the point of a Labour government. Even if it could not force the likes of Green to pay their fair share, it retained the power to shun them and make it clear that those who don’t contribute towards their country can’t expect their country to be grateful.


Phil's normal hood of Monaco - Once described by Somerset Maugham as "A sunny place for shady people."

Amazingly, under Tony Blair even modest defiance of the plutocrats was beyond Labour now and Green, received a knighthood for ’services to the retail industry’. If I were in the Inland Revenue, I would fret about the moment when the little people who stupidly still pay taxes realise that the state is treating them like fools. It insists that they must hand over their earnings on pain of punishment by the courts, while inviting Philip Green to Buckingham Palace to be honoured by the Queen.

If Billionaires like Philip Green want to help society they should pay taxes and stop screwing workers. There are too many Great British Patriots who are too patriotic to pay taxes while living in their little islands in the sun, or in Belize. They are called Conservative Party donors. The whole Non-Dom tax status is nonsense. There is no such thing as an American Tax exile – If you are an American citizen you pay American Federal taxes on your world income no matter where you live. Don’t take my word on Philip Green’s unsuitability to take part in this gimmicky review, this is what Britain’s most trusted economic commentator and trusted politician once said;

"I have no time for billionaire tax dodgers who step off the plane from their tax havens into the country where they make their money and have the effrontery to tell us how to vote and how to run our tax policies. If some of them came onshore and paid their taxes it would make a useful dent in the budget deficit."

Fine words from Vince Cable. Now stand by them.


The man who banked £1.2 Billion tax free in Monte Carlo