[nickcarraway]

Did a 90% tax rate reduce poverty, improve education, or have any other beneficial effect?

[Boogieman]

‘John Lennon revealed in 1968, later adding that “I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along because that’s what he asked for.”’

I believe he contributed the refrains about “If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat, if you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet”, etc.

[PGR88]

Whatever McCarthy may have been trying to say didn’t work on any of their fans

All my Beatles-loving hippy/boomer relatives are reactionary, brain-dead leftists

[Fiji Hill]

Around the same time, the Kinks waxed “Sunny Afternoon,” which is also a tax protest song.

[Vermont Lt]

My guess is they would be incorporated in the Cayman Islands these days.

[KarlInOhio]

The Beatles began paying the top tax rate, which meant that for every pound they earned, 90% of it – 19 shillings and six-pence to be exact – would be taken by the government.

Math failure. 90‰ would be 18 shillings per pound. The rate in the song would be 95%. And the 19/6 just quoted would be 97.5%.

[ifinnegan]

and it’s conceivable a punk band or two may have found inspiration in its attitude. (The Jam’s 1980 single “Start,” for one, owes a huge debt to “Taxman.”)

—

I remember hearing a Jam song that sounded a lot like Taxman.

[subterfuge]

The author missed the main point and the song is analogous to today. You cannot name one thing our government rulers aren’t already taxing. Go ahead and try naming ONE thing they aren’t taxing right now.

[Albion Wilde]

Ping!

[Coronal]

Stevie Ray Vaughan did an excellent cover of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raDcViumSEk

[aquila48]

Bookmark

[GaryCrow]

The Beatles went on to establish a corporation, Apple Corps, in order to lower their taxes. Corporate tax rates were lower than individual tax rates so they incorporated to get the lower rates.

For all their admiration of communist ideals, the Beatles didn't like having their money confiscated any more than the rest of us.