Photo: WENN
After a year in which the band’s income from songs, gig tickets and tour merchandise soared, One Direction ended up making enough money to pay more UK tax than Facebook last year.
The five members, including Zayn Malik, who split from the band in March, reported a pre-tax profit of £45.4m, almost 10 times the previous year’s figure of £4.8m. And that’s not taking into account 'Drag Me Down', the band’s record-breaking single released in the summer.
The boys’ company, 1D Media, paid £8.24m of its profits to the UK Inland Revenue – an amount that dwarfed the £4,327 Facebook paid in 2014, despite the American social media giant crowing about increasing advertising revenues and hitting the billion active users mark.
Other corporations that have paid less tax than One Direction include AstraZeneca, the pharmaceuticals conglomerate, which paid no corporation tax last year despite 2014 profits of more than £3bn.
Even compared to other UK bands such as the Rolling Stones, who have been accused of paying just 1.6% tax on revenues of $368 million, One Direction are doing more than their fair share of paying for the British health and education systems. They paid 18% of their revenue in corporate tax.
However, such healthy band profits are not likely to be sustained in the immediate future, with the band set to take a break to pursue solo projects.
The band’s five original members – Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson – are listed as the only directors in the accounts, filed at Companies House. The accounts are audited by Grant Thornton and Liam Payne is clearly the most trusted member of the band as he signed off the accounts on behalf of his bandmates.
Perhaps not coincidentally, One Direction release their fifth studio album, Made In The AM, tomorrow.
