Furious fan protests at U2 tax status

THERE was a rattle and hum yesterday as a furious U2 fan crushed the band’s entire back catalogue in protest at their tax status.

Green Party local election candidate Mick Murphy drove his 4x4 over all of his collection of U2 albums, smashing them beyond recognition.

In 2006, the band moved part of its business out of Ireland to the Netherlands to ease its tax burden.

It followed the Government’s decision to put a cap on the amount of tax-free earnings available to artists.

The cap of €250,000 on tax-free incomes meant that as a very high-grossing act through album sales, tour receipts and royalties, U2 would have faced a multimillion euro tax bill.

Criticised two years ago by Christian Aid for “tax avoidance”, U2 saw focus on their tax status mount again in recent days ahead of the release of a new album.

A fan of the band since 1981, Mr Murphy said he could no longer accept the concept of tax exiles or rock groups who move their business abroad to avoid Irish tax. “I never thought the day would come that I would not feel proud of them,” he said.

“While tax avoidance is perfectly legal it cannot be justified on moral grounds with the country in its current state.

“While contributing his ego to the country is all well and good for Ireland, on the international stage Bono and co need to be sent a message in their ivory towers that we need more than egos to fund our education and health systems,” he said.

“Hopefully this act today will go some way to making people in privileged positions in society sit up and take notice.”

He said the time has come for all those who declare themselves “Irish and proud to put their shoulders to the wheel of Ireland Inc and push hard”.

In an interview yesterday, Bono said he was “stung” and “hurt” by the criticism of recent days. “I can understand how people outside the country wouldn’t understand how Ireland got to its prosperity, but everybody in Ireland knows that there are some very clever people in the Government and in the Revenue who created a financial architecture that prospered the entire nation — it was a way of attracting people to this country who wouldn’t normally do business here,” he said.

“And the financial services brought billions of dollars every year directly to the exchequer.”

Mr Murphy, who will contest the June local elections, said the crushed remains of the CDs will be recycled into pencils “where they may end up in our under-funded schools and be of some use to our children”.