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Saturday, February 03, 2007

Bono the tax hypocrite

See the New York Times story on U2's use of tax shelters.

This story isn't about Pigouvian taxes, but Kitchen Linker will take the opportunity to advocate 'em. If taxation were shifted from activities with positive externalities to activities with negative externalities then U2's licensing income would not be taxed and hypocritical tax dodges would not be "required" by U2-the-business, nor would they be possible.

On the other hand, U2 and U2 fan's jet-setting ways (KL includes the fans, as let's face it, only rich fans can afford to attend top stars' concerts, and fans often travel to do so) would be heavily taxed.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

yea not only that but globalgrind.com says that $30 million of the money U2 made last year was payed to 5 unidentifed employees..to avoid paying taxes, and that they moved their corporate offices out of Ireland to avoid taxes...this is gonna RUIN Bono's image..I cant stadn him