[h=2]Leaked Paradise Papers reveal how Bono used Malta-based firm to buy a shopping centre in Lithuania [/h]
The U2 singer used Nude Estates, based in Malta, to purchase the Aura mall in Utena, for £5.1m (€5.8m) just after it opened in 2007.
He preaches liberalism.
But his tax saving schemes cheated society.
Bono - real name Paul Hewson - has been fawned over by world leaders since he began touring the globe calling for more Third World aid and debt relief.
Critics have observed that he is a multi-millionaire himself who could have paid more in tax to help the poor in the West and overseas if U2 had remained based in their native Ireland.
Instead, it had already emerged that much U2 money flows through the Netherlands, where a favourable tax regime reduced payments and maximised profits for the band.
But Bono said two years ago that the band ‘paid a fortune in tax’, and brushed off criticisms of the Dutch branch, saying that it was ‘just some smart people we have working for us trying to be sensible about the way we’re taxed. And that’s just one of our companies, by the way. There’s loads of companies’.
He preaches liberalism.
But his tax saving schemes cheated society.
Bono - real name Paul Hewson - has been fawned over by world leaders since he began touring the globe calling for more Third World aid and debt relief.
Critics have observed that he is a multi-millionaire himself who could have paid more in tax to help the poor in the West and overseas if U2 had remained based in their native Ireland.
Instead, it had already emerged that much U2 money flows through the Netherlands, where a favourable tax regime reduced payments and maximised profits for the band.
But Bono said two years ago that the band ‘paid a fortune in tax’, and brushed off criticisms of the Dutch branch, saying that it was ‘just some smart people we have working for us trying to be sensible about the way we’re taxed. And that’s just one of our companies, by the way. There’s loads of companies’.
