Saturday, September 16, 2006

Nought on returns? Not on, retorts Norton

It's not often you see Graham Norton getting vexed, but Bono's tax arrangements really do hack him off:

"People like Bono really annoy me. He goes to hell and back to avoid paying tax. He has a special accountant. He works out Irish tax loopholes. And then he's asking me to buy a well for an African village.

"Tarmac the road outside your house, you tight-wad! Or pay for a school in Ireland.

"I've never met Bono and now I probably never will. But if I do meet him I'll ask him because I think it's a hard thing to justify."


To be fair to Bono, he doesn't actually go to Hell to avoid paying tax, as the higher rate there might be lower but the capital gains arrangements would leave him out of pocket, so he goes to Holland and back instead.

The nice thing about Graham Norton saying this is that Norton is able to do it from the perspective of someone with a bit of cash, and so his objection can't be slapped away as being the ranting of the jealous poor.


1 comment:

ian said...

That's strange. Norton didn't use his recorded message at RedSquare to "raise awareness" of Bono's hypocrisy.

Post a Comment

As a general rule, posts will only be deleted if they reek of spam.