Campaign group takes to streets to highlight U2 tax avoidance

RONAN McGREEVY

IMITATION IS the sincerest form of flattery, but for those protesting about U2’s tax affairs yesterday, imitation was the sincerest form of mockery.

Dressed in a pair of wraparound shades and bearing a passing resemblance to U2 singer Bono, campaigner Paul O’Toole belted out a reworked version of Where the Streets Have no Name , with lyrics that expressed the kind of rage against perceived injustice that used to be U2’s stock-in-trade: “I know avoiding tax ain’t fair/It’s just because I’m a millionaire/I don’t need to pay like you/No, I won’t pay like you/Because I still haven’t learned about democracy/No I still haven’t learned about democracy”.

The protest by Debt and Development Coalition Ireland, a campaign group on issues affecting the developing world, outside the Department of Finance yesterday was aimed at U2’s decision in 2006 to move their royalties company to the Netherlands after the Government capped tax-free earnings for artists here at €250,000.

The group’s co-ordinator Nessa Ní Chasaíde said they wanted to highlight that U2’s tax avoidance measures deprive the Irish exchequer of taxation revenue.

Just as they started, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan turned up for a meeting and was invited to comment on the general issue of wealthy individuals being able to avoid paying tax by moving their tax affairs abroad.

The Minister said the Government had abolished the so-called “Cinderella” law whereby tax exiles could claim they had not spent a day in Ireland if they left by midnight on the day they arrived.

Strictly speaking, U2 are resident in Ireland for tax purposes, though their royalties are not. “We have tax treaties with other countries that regulate where you pay tax. There is a problem with smaller countries that have set up deliberate tax havens. We are raising that at EU level,” the Minister said.

The public will now be invited to follow Mr O’Toole’s lead and rewrite U2 lyrics that reflect their feelings about the band’s tax affairs. Ms Ní Chasaíde said U2’s tax affairs were part of a wider problem of wealthy individuals and corporations avoiding tax which deprives the developing world of an estimated €160 billion in revenue annually, according to a recent Christian Aid report.

The band will respond to criticism of their tax affairs in an extensive interview to be published in this newspaper tomorrow.