We Are Toten Herzen

"A million quid. Fucking hell, they'll hit the roof." Wallet wondered why Susan's bill was bigger than the others then remembered she probably had her name on more publishing deals. But this couldn't be right. There was no record company, no deal, maybe some long lost royalties that had built up, but the band had been in Germany for the last thirty odd years. Wallet phoned Susan.

  -

  She was in a side room at the Mybuurg Grill restaurant in Utrecht feeding on a man who had approached her at a bar, all swagger and aftershave and no idea how offensive his tee-shirt was: 'keep calm and punch her.' Now her phone was ringing. She saw the caller's name. "Excuse me a moment," she said. The victim moaned and threw up again. "Yeah, what do you want, I've got my mouth full here."

  "Did you lot pay any tax while you were in Germany?" Wallet asked.

  "What?"

  "You were still earning money from royalties and sales in all that time, did you keep your tax affairs up to date?"

  "I can't believe you're asking me this right now. Harper dealt with all that. I presume so. Will you get off the phone? Why are you asking that anyway?"

  "It's just that you've all got a tax bill for over a million pounds each."

  "Well, pay it, get someone to pay it or sort it out. Find an expert somewhere." She hung up. "You know," she said to the victim as his final moment floated away from him, "some people just live to bleed you dry. Do you know I've got a tax bill for a million pounds? A million! Are you dead?" The victim was silent and still. "Oh well fuck you then, forgive me for speaking."

  Daily Mirror

  Taxman Demands Pound of Flesh

  Toten Herzen faced with five million pound tax bill

  HMRC watches helplessly as the likes of Starbucks, Amazon, Google and a succession of utility companies walk away from paying their tax bill, but the British public can rest assured that another blood sucking load of parasites will not get off so lightly. Seventies shock rock band Toten Herzen have been ordered to pay individual tax bills of over a million pounds each.

  A spokeswoman for Revenue and Customs said the bill goes back to the last recorded payments in the 1980s and may even be higher than the initial estimates. Toten Herzen's record label, the appropriately named Crass, folded in 1983, six years after the band made a hasty retreat to the not-so-offshore haven of Germany. With no management representation to handle their financial affairs it's uncertain just how much money the band made from continued royalties. Their worldwide record sales are estimated to be over five million copies. (Their music has never been released digitally.)

  The bands spokesman, Rob Wallet, whose own journalistic career was in freefall, expressed his disappointment at the band's tax affairs being made public. "We'll be asking why the band has been singled out in this way, when there are far more serious tax avoiders running around apparently untouchable. We're not trying to avoid the bill, the four members of the band have been living outside the UK for the last thirty five years and will be happy to explain and settle any outstanding debts. Who knows maybe we could set an example for some of the other leeches trying to get out of paying what they owe."

  The idea that Toten Herzen, a band renowned for encouraging their supporters to sacrifice animals, should set an example to anyone is astonishing, but when the Mirror contacted Starbucks UK head office to see if they would follow Toten Herzen's example and pay their own Vampires' Tax no one was available for comment.