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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction
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To: Sully- who wrote (73792)9/15/2009 11:44:15 PM
From: TimF2 Recommendations  Read Replies (1) of 90947
 
Thinking of the Beatles and taxes

...Money normally enters the Beatles story only as a reason for their demise. When Epstein died, the group famously began to argue about management and contracts and cash. Born out of music, killed by money, that’s the usual story.

However, Tony Bramwell provides a different account. Bramwell was friends with all the group, present when Paul met John; he was Brian Epstein’s right-hand man, fixing gigs for Jimi Hendrix and mixing drinks with the Rolling Stones; and was still there when Phil Spector produced Let It Be. In his recent book Magical Mystery Tours (a wonderful insider memoir) Bramwell argues that it was penal tax rates that helped to destroy the group’s cohesion.

First told to give away vast amounts to avoid tax bills — which they did in a series of madcap ventures, offering money to any old person who dropped by with a demo tape — then told they had to make £120,000 in order to keep just £10,000. Soon their finances were in chaos and their energy sapped, as nutters beseiged Apple HQ pressing tapes on them. They also ran a clothes shop as a tax dodge.

Bramwell blames Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister, directly. “There were enough new regulations and red tape to tie up free enterprise for years ... One minute Swinging London was like a giant theme park, the envy of the world, then they — Wilson and his gang — closed it down. It was as if they went out and stamped on it.”...

timesonline.co.uk
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