A ‘powerful weapon’? Tax, avoidance, and the politics of celebrity shaming

In the years following the global financial crisis, the tax affairs of celebrities began to receive significant critical attention in the UK press. ‘Tax shaming’ has been welcomed as a significant weapon in the fight for tax justice: it is argued that in lieu of the government action needed to close loopholes in tax law, the threat of public condemnation serves to deter would-be tax avoiders. Focusing on news stories about celebrity tax avoiders, this article complicates this prevailing view of tax shaming. Drawing on cultural studies and cultural economy approaches, I argue that commentators have overlooked the forms of identification that tax shaming stories afford. Through a discussion of the discursive figure of the beleaguered ‘taxpayer’ in neoliberal culture, I propose that celebrity tax shaming consolidates identification with this subject position, deepening anti-tax sentiment. Stories that ostensibly ‘shame’ celebrities also support identification with the figure of the tax avoider, perpetuating fantasies of avoidance, evasion and escape. The article concludes that tax shaming contributes to the formation of emergent taxation imaginaries, animating politically salient conceptions of the ‘taxpayer’ and of avoidance that tend to promote logics of tax efficiency and minimization.