Paul Thomas: Taxing time as halo slips from rock's saintly one

It's hard to be a saint in the city," hollered Bruce Springsteen on his debut album. It's even harder to be a saint in the global village, as U2's Bono is now discovering.

Bono has succeeded fellow Irishman Bob Geldof as the conscience of rock 'n' roll and front-man for Famous People Who Want To Save The World Inc.

He seems to be quite effective at getting into the ears and pockets of decision-makers perhaps because, unlike Geldof, he doesn't conduct his dealings with them with his face squeezed into a disdainful scowl.

But the saint is teetering on his pedestal. A venture capital firm in which he is one of six partners has invested almost half a billion dollars in Forbes, a US business magazine that could be described as the mouthpiece for capitalism's devil-take-the-hindmost tendency.

Forbes is read by the sort of people who believe that welfare is waste, poor people should be left to sink or swim, environmentalists are economic saboteurs and taxation is theft.

Strike Two was the news that tax considerations have prompted U2 to move their multimillion-dollar operation from Ireland to Amsterdam.

Ireland is a tax haven for creative types but recently the Government imposed a $500,000 cap on tax-free incomes.

Most creative types I know could live with that but it's not tax efficient enough for U2, so their assets are off to Amsterdam, following a trail blazed by the founder members of rock music's plutocracy, the Rolling Stones.

Greed, it seems, is not merely good, it rocks.

The argument goes something like this: Bono has always demanding that Western governments donate more money to poor countries; that money comes from taxpayers; despite being obscenely rich, Bono baulks at paying tax that could be used for the benefit of his less-fortunate compatriots or diverted into overseas aid.

In other words, he is not prepared to put his money where his mouth is.

Bono has been irritating people for years.

Early on, he cut an absurd figure with his mullet hairstyle and puppy fat and bombastic stage presence.

There's the silly name and the sun-glasses and the earnestness that could do with a rest but seldom seems to get one.

And there's the vaguely creepy concert routine, where he handpicks an attractive young woman from the area in front of the stage reserved for attractive young women and dances with her, serenades her, and lies down on the stage with her while she gazes swooningly into his impenetrable shades.

It might be intended as an ironic, post-modern comment on the groupie phenomenon, but it comes across as egotistical and exploitative.

While the anti-Bono brigade will be telling each other that they knew he was a fake all along, the danger of these revelations is that they may alienate his devoted admirers. Hell hath no fury like a disciple disillusioned.

Hypocrisy over money comes in many forms. Take everyone's favourite rock icon, Keith Richards.

The sub-text to much that is written about the Stones is that Richards, he of the hedonistic lifestyle and louche appearance, remains faithful to the band's ethos, while Mick Jagger has sold out. These days, we're told, Jagger is first and foremost a businessman but for Keef it's still all about the music, man.

Like the senior partner he is, Richards pockets a juicy slice of the firm's profits yet seldom misses an opportunity to mock Jagger's beady-eyed focus on the bottom line, a fixation that helped to transform the band from financial basket-case to billion-dollar conglomerate. That seems to be having it both ways.

Bono's conduct raises the interesting question of whether there is an inherent contradiction in being a self-declared idealist and campaigner for worthy causes while exploiting every loophole to ensure you pay minimal tax on your vast earnings.

And where does philanthropy fit into the equation? If you're philanthropically inclined, isn't the ability to accumulate lots of money a good thing since the more you have, the more you can give away? (See Bill Gates.)

By the time of his death late last year, the Australian tycoon Kerry Packer was worth around $8 billion. He didn't get to be that rich by paying tax at the top rate.

On the contrary, he waged a life-long war against the tax office and won most of the battles; in 1999, for instance, his private company paid no tax at all on profits of $1.5 billion.

Packer's critics argued that he didn't deserve a state memorial service because of this reluctance to contribute to the society from which he derived much of his wealth; his defenders countered that his behind-the-scenes philanthropy amounted to many millions of dollars.

My view is that Bono's financial affairs are between him and his conscience and have no bearing on his good works, which should be applauded.

While the spectacle of celebrities parading their social consciences is often risible because it involves jumping on the bandwagon du jour or is driven by a yearning to be taken seriously, he has taken up difficult and unfashionable causes and, having immersed himself in the detail, pursued them with discipline and single-mindedness.

Besides, if Bono is forced to give up his crusade, I doubt the Third World can expect much help from Paris Hilton.