$7 Million Stolen from The Rolling Stones

February 15th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

That's really the whole essence of this story, via email from my brother Stacy.

The Rolling Stones has taken advantage of the Netherlands tax structures for the past 20 years, with the help of Dutch accountant Johannes Favie, who runs Promogroup, a financial consulting firm. Promogroup has helped the Rolling Stones pay just over $7 million in taxes on earnings of $450 million over the past two decades. In 2005, the rockers paid a tax rate of 1.6 percent on earnings of $172 million.

Anyone is welcome to slice it and dice it any way they may wish, but at the end of the day, you can't claim that the Stones were not compelled, by force -- by threat the destruction of their grand enterprise and loss of their freedom -- to pay that $7 million. That's a fact, and that fact has very clear implications.

Oh, I'm quite sure they don't begrudge it at all. They're probably rather pleased about it. At U.S. corporate tax rates of 35%, they would have paid around $160 million in taxes most other places. In a sense, then, it could be argued that they paid the Netherlands $7 million dollars to protect them from having $160 million stolen. Defense against theft and aggression isn't cheap, especially when the thieves are some of the largest nation-states on the planet.

...And consider this: suppose the Rolling Stones, or any of the other mega-productive individuals or groups was not obligated to pay a single dime. Out of a half-billion dollars, how much do you suppose they might willingly give to pay for civil order, if only asked nicely? Think it might just be a bit more than $7 million out of half a billion?

Well, good for them, and good for all the others the article cites. The rest of you can fucking choke on your "tax revenues," you worthless, envious fucks. I haven't got a second's use for any fuck, anywhere, that can't acknowledge the plain fact of theft.