Popstar: Let me pay more in tax
OFFER: Paul’s worth £2.5m
The Happy Hour singer, inset, said his accountant was always nagging him about saving his money, but he just wants to give it away.
Paul, 58, went on to form another chart-topping band The Beautiful South and sold over 15million records.
But he lives modestly in a terraced house in the Manchester suburb of Withington, despite him reportedly being worth around £2.5million.
Paul, who often doles out money to help out the needy, said his accountant “despaired” of his generosity.
He said a recent email from his office urged him to save money, but that he ended up telling his numbers man that he wanted to pay more tax.
He said: “It’s just [the accountant] despairing, ’cos he’s saying, ‘We can save money this way,’ and I’m being contrary.
“If he says, ‘Here’s a way of saving money’, then I say, ‘Well, I want to pay more tax on it’. That’s how I’ve been and that’s how I’ll remain.” Paul is even negotiating with Manchester City Council to pay a higher rate of council tax. The lowest rate is £1,150; the top rate is £3,449. The singer has said he has never really been bothered about cash.
He once offered the royalties from his entire back catalogue to the Government, as long as it was spent on improving living standards.
His offer was refused by then Business Secretary Greg Clark. Speaking on former Channel 5 show The Wright Stuff in 2017, Paul recalled: “I offered up my songs for nationalisation. “This would mean songs like Happy Hour, Rotterdam, Perfect 10 and the rest, every time they got played on the radio, the state would take the money and put it back into improving our living standards. “I felt I’d made enough money from them. I didn’t want to nationalise my savings, as such. I was just saying this was a gift to the British public and I got a refusal from Greg Clark.”
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