The Edge has shot down allegations that U2 have been engaging in tax evasion in a letter to the Baltimore Sun. The guitarist was responding to a letter to the paper by a federal employee named Simon Maroney published on July 7th which attacked frontman Bono's ONE campaign and accused the band of moving their business to a tax haven in Holland in order to avoid strict tax rates in their native Ireland.

According to the Edge, Maroney's "contains so many inaccuracies that it is pointless to correct them all." Nevertheless, the guitarist insisted that "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."

Photos: Three Decades of U2

The Edge defended U2's business in Holland by citing an interview with Owen Durgan of Ireland's Ministry of Finance in the March 2009 issue of Spin in which Durgan explained that he "wouldn't make an issue" out of it. "People complained at the time," Durgan said. "But we have companies moving here from the rest of the EU, so it all evens out."

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