U2 guitarist The Edge has denied claims the band has avoided paying taxes in a letter sent to a US newspaper.
In a missive sent to the Baltimore Sun in response to criticism of the band's tax affairs in a recently published letter, The Edge defended U2's practices and dismissed "the possibly libellous accusation that U2 and Bono have, by moving a part of their business activities to Holland, been involved in tax evasion".
"For the record, U2 and the individual band members have a totally clean record with every jurisdiction to which they are required to pay tax and have never been and will never be involved in tax evasion," he said in the letter published yesterday.
The Edge, also reiterated a comment from the Department of Finance, which was published in Spin Magazine in 2009, that there were no issues with the band choosing to base some of their activities in the Netherlands.
The musician also stressed that U2 and its members had paid "many, many millions of dollars in taxes to the United States Internal Revenue Services over the years."
In a letter sent to the newspaper last week in response to a missive from local senator Benjamin Cardin defending Bono and his One Foundation, Baltimore resident Simon Moroney claimed the U2 frontman exemplified "the worst characteristics of Wall Street, both for excess and tax evasion."
He went on to allege that U2 had abused the tax exemption for artists scheme in Ireland to amass hundreds of millions of dollars tax free.
In a subsequent letter, Mr Moroney clarified that he was not accusing either U2 or individual band members of criminal tax evasion but saying that they "aligned their business interests with avoiding paying taxes".
Protesters recently voiced their opposition to the band 's tax affairs by trying to disrupt U2's debut headline performance at Glastonbury Festival late last month.
Direct action group Art Uncut inflated a giant balloon with the message "U Pay Your Tax 2" as the band took to the stage to play.
The controversy surrounding the band focuses on a company called U2 Ltd, which moved its domicile to the Netherlands when Ireland brought in a cap on the artists income tax exemption scheme of €250,000 in 2006.
U2 manager Paul McGuinness has also previously defended the band's tax arrangements while frontman Bono told The Irish Times in 2009 that he was "stung" and "hurt" by criticism of the group's decision to move part of its business abroad.
