Bono pulls out of Maltese company exposed in Paradise Papers

● Lithuanian company linked to Bono fined after revelations

A Malta-based Lithuanian company has agreed to pay €53,000 in back taxes following an investigation prompted by the Paradise Papers revelations and the U2 front man has ended his minority investment in the company.

The Irish singer, whose real name is Paul Hewson, had been a minority investor in a Maltabased company that had purchased a shopping centre in Lithuania through a Maltabased holding company named Nude Estates 2.

After Bono’s link to the Lithuanian firm emerged, a Lithuanian tax expert looked at its accounts and claimed it may have broken the law when it revalued the Aušra shopping centre following the economic downturn in 2010.

The revaluation created a €3 million loss which the company then offset against its income, enabling it to avoid the 15 per cent tax payable on profits.

But in the wake of the Paradise Papers investigation, the Lithuanian tax office stepped in over concerns that this use of losses broke Lithuanian laws.

On Friday it said the company had paid €34,000 in profit tax for 2012 and €19,000 in penalty fees for the delay.

Ruta Asadauskaite, a spokeswoman for the Lithuanian State Tax Inspectorate, told the AFP news agency that the investigation was finished “at the end of last year”, after which the tax authorities recommended that the company pay up.

At the time of the revelation, Bono had said he would be “extremely distressed if even as a passive minority investor ... any- thing less than exemplary was done with my name anywhere near it”.

Following news of the settlement, he said: “I fully support the tax authority’s inspection, and am thankful it’s now complete. It is my understanding that Nude Estates has now voluntarily made a payment to cover a technical error in a 2012 filing.

“Although no wrong-doing by the company has been suggested by the revenue, I am not happy that it took the inspection to reveal this error so I have instructed my advisers to end my investment in the company that I had no hand in running.”