Taking the opportunity to plug his ridiculous new ‘Gene Simmons Vault’ – sorry, the “Gene Simmons Vault Dot Com Box Set” – the KISS bassist/salesman recently had a chat about some of the more interesting details of his Wikipedia page, and cleared up a few doubts about some of the stranger stories.
One particularly interesting tidbit that came out of the segment is that, yes, he did actually own AFL team the Carlton Football Club at one point, if only for a moment – and it was all just a bid to dodge taxes.
“The reality is that I did purchase it,” he tells Loudwire (via UG). “It was a one-day purchase, and it’s called a fold back I think, where you go in, and it was a way to shield Australian taxes.
“As soon as you earn money offshore, you have to pay offshore taxes,” he explains. “And then that’s put against the American taxes, but they hold on to your money, and while they hold on to your money you don’t get the benefit of the…
“You know, they loan out your money while they hold on to it for a year. It’s an old banking trick, and it’s legal.
“It’s circumvent that what you wanna do is minimize your legal and tax exposure.”
So, a bit of a dry explanation in the end, but there you go Carlton fans: at one point the Blues were owned by The Demon.
In other KISS news, Simmons recently admitted that he and the rest of the band are probably getting a little old for the makeup and platform boots at this point, and may need to think about retiring pretty soon.
As long as the tours are still making him enough money, however, we can’t see him hanging up the armour without a fight.
