A young Brit singer is showing some independence

I have to say I had not hear of this singer Adele.  Then again I'm in my mid forties and things like this do pass me by more often now....over the hill, what hill, I don't remember their being any hill...







But it seems our little Ms Adele is learning about the welfare state...and she don't like it.

Adele vs. Taxes
The pop singer rants about tax rates and the welfare state.

Singer Adele is on top of the charts and her taxes, but that hasn’t stopped critics from trying to drag her down for comments she made about footing the bill for the British welfare state.

On average, British subjects earning more than £122,000 (about $200,000) take home only about 60.9 percent of their earnings, according to a UHY International study released earlier this month. In contrast, the wealthiest Americans typically keep around 70 percent of the money they make. In the midst of the 2009 recession, Alistair Darling, Britain’s previous chancellor, announced a new 50 percent income-tax rate. Tax rates have remained there, despite David Cameron’s pledge to take a look at a reduction once the economy stabilizes.

In the meantime, Adele isn’t pleased. Her first album, 19, released in 2008, sold 2.2 million copies by mid-July — and then the tax bill came due. Now she’s“mortified” to pay half her income in tax, and told Q Magazine:

I use the NHS, I can’t use public transport any more, doing what I do, I went to state school . . . ! Trains are always late, most state schools are s[***], and I’ve gotta give you like 4 million quid, are you ’avin a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from 19, I was ready to go ’n’ buy a gun and randomly open fire.

The way these idiots take things too damned literal now you may want to tone it down a bit....

At only 23 and worth a rumored £6 million, the chanteuse could be forgiven her harsh words. Careening from award to award — her latest album, 21, became the first in 2011 to sell 2 million copies last week and tops the charts in 15 countries — she hasn’t had time to learn the diva deal that the political Left affords stars: Make your music, but don’t have any politics but ours. And predictably, the Guardian’s Rob Fitzpatrick attacked her for her heresy and joined in the cacophony on Twitter by calling her “as greedy as the most moat-friendly port-stained Tory grandee.”

I wonder if little Mr Fitzpatrick has a problem with the tax dodges of Paul McCartney or Bono to avoid taxes. At least this woman is open about it. But I love the fact this woman is telling people where to go...and how she lives her life.

But Adele, born to a single teenage mum in working-class London, neither looks nor acts the part of Scrooge and spends her days hanging out with her mates and drinking cider in the afternoon. She won’t give up smoking, though it could end her singing career. And she’s far more generous than the cradle-to-grave welfare state she’s supposed to love. She dotes upon her mother and has endowed trust funds for her cousins who are “young mums.” Indeed, Adele aspires not to sing forever, but to motherhood: “I feel like I’m here to be a mum. I wanna look after someone and be looked after, give my all to someone in marriage and have a big family, have a proper purpose.”

I've never smoked a cigarette in my life but I kinda like the Independence it's showing now...hey, I like to smoke so kiss my ass. And taking care of your own family...that has to be some type of heresy. Not to mention saying out loud her goal is motherhood. Gotta love someone not cowed by the welfare state in a former great nation.

...If Adele finds her taxes too high, she can always come to America, where taxes, at least for celebrities, have long seemed optional. The IRS most recently hit rapper DMX with a tax lien in May. Actor Wesley Snipes didn’t even file from 1999 to 2004, and as a result is currently serving a three-year prison sentence. Another rapper, Lil Wayne, owes taxes from 2004, 2005, and 2007. And singer and actress Dionne Warwick, according to the LA Times, owes $2.2 million in back taxes.

— Charles C. Johnson is both the Eric Breindel Collegiate and Robert F. Bartley Fellow at the Wall Street Journal.

Hey Adele, join the long list of conservative celebrities (and liberal ones too...they just don't like to mention it out loud) to tax havens like Florida or Texas. Please. I'll even check out your music if you tell the government where to stick it's 50% tax rate!