Let’s all chip in and help poor Adele pay her tax bill
Poor Adele. I’m CRYING MY EYES OUT right now, having read The Guardian’s piece on the poor singer. Adele, the multi-million selling artist, has had to… sorry, I’m finding it hard to bring myself to type this… she’s had to pay tax. Yes, I know. Actual tax.
I’m mortified to have to pay 50%! [While] I use the NHS, I can’t use public transport any more. Trains are always late, most state schools are shit, and I’ve gotta give you, like, four million quid – are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from [the album] 19, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire.
I’ve been thinking about what we can all do to help. It must be really hard as a 23-year-old, plucked from obscurity and having number-one albums all over the world, to have to pay tax. Maybe we can all have a whip-round and help her.
Let’s of course ignore the fact no-one in the UK pays 50%, because the 50% band only affects income over ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FUCKING THOUSAND POUNDS. (You pay less on earnings under that amount.) Also, let’s ignore her tax bill being less than her net income for working on one album, meaning she’s made more from that than many indie bands will make during their ENTIRE FUCKING CAREERS.
Good grief, Adele, way to endear yourself to your audience. I bet most people and certainly most musicians would be jumping for joy if they could get a four-million quid tax bill for a year or so’s work, because it’d mean they’d received income to keep of more than four million pounds, you spoiled brat.
Bloody hell. I have a better suggestion than all of us chipping in to her tax bill: I pay no tax, since I don’t have a job. I think there are a few other people like me. If Adele is whining so much about her tax bill, perhaps we can swap?
By coincidence, I was just planning to purchase a remixed version of one of her songs (High Contrast’s version of Hometown Glory if anyone cares).
The temptation to head for a site of less repute than iTunes is currently quite high, after all if I don’t pay her 99p, that’s 50p less tax she has to pay, so everyone wins.*
* Except the NHS+
+ In fact, why don’t I just give a quid to the Red Cross and pirate the fucking thing.
That’s ridicoulous who should pay that much for tax just because her earnings are more than anyone else’s. Poor Adele she’s Making good music and it’s like the goverment are peanilising her. I think she should pay as much as us. Hang in there Adele.
I Think that Adele is right nobody should pay that much.
@Toby: Tax is proportional, so you pay a set amount of your income, which, once you earn over £150,000 (i.e. *six* times the national average) is a 50% rate for that part of your income. As it stands, those with lower earnings already pay more of their money in taxes. If we somehow capped earnings, the non-super-rich would suddenly find themselves paying even more tax, just to make things easier for people like Adele, who in a year has earned about six times what most people will earn in an entire lifetime of work—and got to keep half of it. (More to the point, if she really did pay 50%, she’s an idiot and should have got a better accountant.)
Still, feel free to campaign against this kind of thing, because it’s precisely what the Tories want to stop. But don’t then be shocked when YOUR tax bill goes up, or when public services are cut or privatised.