Tax Concerns Didn’t Draw Rolling Stones, U2 to Netherlands: Manager

The Rolling Stones and U2 didn’t shelter their intellectual property rights in the Netherlands so they could pay less tax on outgoing royalties, a representative for the bands said.

Jan Favie, the director of Promogroup and U2 Ltd., the two Amsterdam-based companies that manage the global intellectual property rights of the Rolling Stones and U2, respectively, denied at a June 12 Dutch parliamentary hearing that tax motives played any role in the artists’ decision to move their IP rights to the Netherlands.

The Netherlands is one of very few countries that doesn’t impose withholding tax on outgoing royalties, but Favie, ...