Ed Sheeran made millions last year - and paid millions in tax. Photo / Getty Images
Ed Sheeran made millions last year - and paid millions in tax. Photo / Getty Images
Ed Sheeran’s tax bill has been revealed - and it’s an eye-watering £8 million ($16m).
The popstar, 32, gave himself a £10m ($20m) pay rise last year, banking a whopping £18.3m ($37m), reports the Mirror UK.
Making a profit of £16.3m ($33m), Ed Sheeran Ltd turned over £23.6m ($48m) - but the payday came with a big tax bill. Sheeran reportedly paid a staggering £158,917 ($326,000) in tax per week - that’s five times the average British salary.
The document filed with Companies House in the UK last week reveals £3.1m ($6m) in corporation tax and a £5m (10m) bill for the popstar’s touring company.
In previous interviews, Sheeran has claimed he’s not chasing wealth as “I have enough to be comfortable and the rest goes [towards helping] people”.
“It’s like, earn a penny, spend a penny with me. I don’t have that much value on it. I have more value on my friends and family being okay.”
It comes after the release of his new album Autumn Variations, which has left music critics divided. His previous album Subtract was all about his grief and mental health struggles following his wife’s health battle and the death of his close friend Jamal Edwards.
Ed Sheeran performed at Eden Park in February this year. Photo / Andrew Cornaga / Photosport
By contrast, the new album focuses on his friends. Sheeran previously said he “wrote songs, some from their perspectives, some from mine, to capture how they and I viewed the world at that time”.
The album is inspired by composer Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations and was produced with musician Aaron Dessner.
It’s Sheeran’s first non-collaborative studio album not to be given a mathematical symbol for a name, following Plus (2011), Multiply (2014), Divide (2017) and Equals (2021). Subtract was released in May this year.
Sheeran has explained that in the autumn of 2022, his friends were either settling down in their lives and experiencing calm, or falling apart.
“When I went through a difficult time at the start of last year, writing songs helped me understand my feelings and come to terms with what was going on,” he explained.
“When I learned about my friends’ different situations, I wrote songs, some from their perspectives, some from mine, to capture how they and I viewed the world at that time.”
Elgar wrote 14 compositions based on 14 of his friends, and Sheeran took inspiration from that.
“We wrote and recorded non-stop, and this album was born out of that partnership,” he said.
“I feel he has captured the feeling of autumn so wonderfully in his sonics, and I hope everyone loves it as much as I do.”
