Searching (fruitlessly) for tax stories in this morning's Daily Mirror, I happened upon the unlikely suggestion that David Bowie caused the credit crunch.
Writer-broadcaster Evan Davis posits the theory that the Thin White Duke's 1997 securitisation of his royalties - via Bowie Bonds - pioneered a manner in which banks began to operate, which in turn led to the current financial crisis.
Thinking this a fun theory to share with Taxation readers I skimmed the web for a tax angle on Bowie (World's Greatest Pop Star 1972-1977), and I thought I'd found one when I auto-searched his Wikipedia entry for the word 'tax'.
'Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am,' I thought.
Then I noticed the page's opening sentence: 'David "give it here" Bowie (January 23 1889 - August 12 2016) is the pseudonym of former London second-hand car salesman David "Yeah, course it has an MOT" Jones'.
I was in Uncyclopedia, the spoof site that in my haste I'd taken for the more serious offering it so closely resembles.
Imagine my dismay when I realised that The Man Who Fell to Earth and his collaborators Tony Visconti and Brian Eno had not moved to Berlin in 1977 because they were 'facing extradition to the United States over tax evasion'.
It seemed so plausible, too.
Far more so, at least, than Eno 'being prosecuted at the time for a bogus sleep therapy device'.

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