Taxing Bono: why not paying fair share amounts to anti-social behaviour

PITY poor Bono — he spends half his life working to relieve poverty and disease in the Third World and, in an instant, his tax advisers have people calling for his head.

Personally, I’d give him a ‘get out of jail free’ card for all his good works, though I might be less well disposed to the other fat-cat members of the U2 corporation.

What we seem to forget is that, in a democratic society, the taxation system is the main mechanism for the redistribution of wealth. We don’t pay taxes just so that the road system can expand to accommodate our ever increasing number of cars, or for extra gardaí and prison places to keep the proletariat in their place, or to keep Government ministers in shiny new Mercs each year.