After protests during their headline set at Glastonbury last month U2’s The Edge has come out punching, denying that either the band or individual members are not paying their share. The protests, amidst mass unemployment and economic hardship in Ireland, concern the band moving their assets to a Dutch tax haven in 2006 following the Irish Government ending a tax exemption granted to artists in the 1980s designed to encourage them to stay in the country rather than moving elsewhere.
Following an Op Ed piece in the Baltimore Sun last week by a US Federal Government employee accusing them of fleecing the US Government of their rightful dues, the Edge penned an angry missive to the paper in response, saying that the article was “possibly libellous”. His letter says “For the record, U2 and the individual band members have a totally clean record with every jurisdiction to which they are required to pay tax and have never been and will never be involved in tax evasion.”
The Edge continued: “U2 and its members have paid many, many millions of dollars in taxes to the United States Internal Revenue Service over the years.” Protestors at their Glastonbury set wrestled with festival security when they floated a banner in front of the stage saying “U pay tax 2?”.
