A new tax rate for moaning celebrities

By Conor Pope / @conorpope

I’ve long been unsure about the 50% top tax rate as a permanent fixture. I’m unconvinced by its economic implications and worry that it sends a message that aspiration is A Bad Thing. I don’t worry about it much, obviously, I probably spend more time worrying about whether I’m killing the planet when I leave the tap on brushing my teeth.

And what you’ll increasingly find is that gaunt, pale celebrities will appear in interviews, clutching a frayed-edged shabby blanket around their shoulders for warmth and nibbling on a stolen, rotting onion as they explain how they’re taxed so much they’re barely able to live. Tracey Emin, who, lest we forget, can’t afford a cleaner and has resorted to living in a tent, threatened to move to France when she heard how much she’d have to pay, presumably whilst scavenging through pub ashtrays for discarded cigarettes that still had some tobacco in.

This week the singer Adele bemoaned about the tax rate, probably while cradling a haggard-looking dog in Elephant & Castle underpass. “The trains are always late,” she cried, seemingly unaware that people are required to purchase expensive tickets before boarding the privatised mode of transport.

Having discovered that Adele attended the publicly-funded BRIT School for Performing Arts, I can’t help but feel that maybe she has a point when she says taxpayer money is wasted. After all, she has so little imagination that she can’t think of any other name for her albums other than her own age. She might as well scrawl ‘Adele aged nineteen and a bit’ onto each one one in crayon, with a crudely-drawn picture of herself. For those of us who don’t think “most state schools are sh*t”, finding out that having her middle-of-the-road, sub-Winehouse, soul music for soulless people career was taxpayer-funded is a bit of a kick in the teeth. It’s like when your big brother makes you hit yourself with your own arm. Or discovering that the millionaire Prime Minister of a government whose main focus is the slashing of public-spending has spent nearly £700,000 on refurbishing his house.

Et tu, taxes?

But by far the biggest revelation was that when she got the tax bill for her first album, 19, she couldn’t believe she had to give away £4 million. Rather than feel upset for a nineteen year old having to pay £4 million in tax, what struck me was that she was moaning that she only had £4 million to keep. Now 21, and with her second album (wait for it) 21 just released (don’t buy it), she is now worth £6 million. So, while most twenty-one year olds will worry how they might pay back their student debt, or get a job in a climate where 20% of young people are unemployed, Adele has to worry about only being the ninth richest popstar in Britain and Ireland under 30.

Every time another of these curmudgeonly-faced celebrities opines about just how hard done by they are, I can’t help but feel that maybe they should be taxed a little more. Maybe, for top-earners, tax should be put up by 1% for every time they moan about how much they’re taxed. Like a teacher who stands at the front of a noisy class at the end of a day, saying “It’s your own time you’re wasting”, maybe we should keep tallying up how much their tax is going up while a celebrity whinges, saying “it’s your own time you’re wasting…On hospitals, making schools better, keeping streets safe and your own success.”