Bono-linked company pays extra taxes after Lithuania probe

A company linked to U2 frontman Bono has voluntarily paid 53,000 euros after an investigation into tax evasion in Lithuania, authorities said Friday.

The singer, whose real name is Paul David Hewson, was an investor in the Maltese company which bought a shopping centre in the Baltic eurozone member's city of Utena.

The company that owns the mall "paid 34,000 euros ($41,000) in profit tax for 2012 and 19,000 euros in penalty fees for the delay," State Tax Inspectorate spokeswoman Ruta Asadauskaite told AFP.

She said the investigation into Nude Estates 2 started in 2017 and was finished "at the end of last year" after which the tax authorities recommended that the company pay up.

The leaked Paradise Papers in November revealed that Bono owned a stake in a Maltese holding company that bought the mall, via a Lithuanian holding company, in 2007.

At the time, Bono, a well known anti-poverty campaigner, said that he was "a passive minority investor" and had been assured that the company was fully tax compliant.

© 2018 AFP