Take That’s Gary Barlow blasted on Twitter over tax avoidance allegations! Here’s why we SHOULDN’T go for his jugular!
Yesterday, headlines in the majority of the press focussed on allegations that Gary Barlow and his Take That band mates had used a “shady investment scheme” in order to avoid paying taxes on their whopping incomes…
The Sun reported that following a tribunal, Gary and band mates Mark Owen and Howard Donald – as well as the group’s manager Jonathan Wild – had been ordered to repay £20million to HM Customs.
The paper quotes tax expert Martin Taylor as saying, “It’s a complete mess for those caught up in it. There’s no doubt it will hit their image…”
As soon as the news broke, Twitter was inundated with messages berating Gary over the allegation, with one user of the social networking site remarking, “All that charity work #GaryBarlow carried out and all the while dodging millions in tax – did Take That write anything about #hypocrite”
Another commented, “Could #GaryBarlow be removed from my TV screen until he’s paid all his taxes? Or forever, actually. *switches off* #BBC”
And one more angrily stated, “Hey @GaryBarlow. Great to see a lying, cheating Tory tax-dodger come a cropper! #garybarlow #taxdodger”
There are hundreds of similar messages, but the fact is, nobody’s waiting to see what Gary himself has to say about this, and as Taylor told The Sun, “People are naïve and listen to their advisers.
“They can be victims, not just villains.”
Is it so difficult to believe that Gary had no idea what was happening with the allegedly “dodgy” investment scheme? I really don’t think it is. You have to bear in mind that there won’t be just one person handling the finances of the band as a whole – or I would imagine even the individuals – and furthermore, I would suggest that if Gary or anyone else for that matter trusted those advising them about the finances, they wouldn’t question everything they were asked to sign or do a thorough investigation into everything they invested in.
It’d be a full-time job, hence why those earning millions spend a goodly proportion of it on financial advisers, and one assumes then that they trust those advisers to do what’s not only in their best interests with their cash, but also to ensure it’s done entirely above board.
An analogy might be that we – well, certainly I – don’t usually have any idea what our pension fund is being used for before we get it, but we tend to assume that whoever is overseeing the fund can be trusted not to use our money for anything illegal or dodgy. But how do we know they’re not?
Now obviously, I have no clue how any of this came about, but what I’m suggesting is that we should give Gary and his band mates the benefit of the doubt because it’s entirely possible they had no idea what was happening to their cash…
And until they themselves speak out about it – should they choose to – we surely shouldn’t be so quick to assume they’re ‘guilty’ of anything?
But it’s a sad indictment on our society that we love to see someone take a fall, and when you’re standing on a pedestal that’s as high as Gary’s – a position he earned with his tireless charity work – then it’s quite the drop.
What say you? Is everyone rushing to assume Gary’s ‘guilty’ before knowing the full facts?
Let us know, but for now, here’s a reminder of him in action…
