Sport and tax avoidance

Lives there a man or woman with souls so dead who has never heard the name of Boris Becker?

Well, just to bring this rapture down to earth for a moment, I'd better say, as a calm reporter, that the answer is, probably, yes, about 94 per cent of the population of most countries within hearing.

You know it's one of the touching delusions of sports heroes and heroines that they think they are household names in every country they play in, but if you were to shout in a crowded English tube, 'Who is Joe Namath?' there would be a thundering silence. Just as if you were to silence the baseball crowds in any stadium in America and shout over the loudspeaker, 'Will anyone who knows the name of Ian Botham, please stand up!' Nobody would rise.

This is not a notion of mine. It's confirmed by statistical surveys that would certainly amaze and humble the fans in America of Joe Namath, and in Britain and other cricketing countries of Ian Botham. And I'm told that Ian Botham is one of the greatest cricketers. I hope, by the way, that cricket maniacs don't put me down as an ignorant slob so far as cricket is concerned.

Every generation cherishes its heroes and shakes it head over the new young upstarts. How many present can tell you the English batting order in the 1921 Tests? Well, I don't have to look it up to take a heavy bet that against the murderous bowling of the burly Armstrong and the lean Gregory, it was Hobbs, Sutcliffe and E. Tyldesley, the first wicket down.

All right, now that the proper credentials have been established, let's return to the thrilling name and fame of Boris Becker. For the 90-odd per cent of listeners in Britain and the Americas and maybe 99 per cent in Sri Lanka who are wondering if Boris Becker is either a rock star or a defecting Russian intellectual, let's begin by saying that he is just 17 years of age and, last Sunday, he had the outrageous gall to win the men's singles championship at Wimbledon – the first unseeded player to do it in the 100-odd year history of the game and, by I think a couple of years, the youngest man ever, not to mention the only German or, as an official expert on the game just reminded me, the only man. That was odd. I did say, did I not, the men's singles. I doubt that a German woman, even from East Germany and on a crash diet of steroids, has ever made it.

So the point I want to make about this blond carrot-topped young German who is built like a cruise missile, has thighs of rubber and pistons where we usually find arms, is that though, a month ago, even several million fans of the game had never heard his name and while not struggling to eat, he was a modestly employed tennis pro just out of the junior ranks, his parents, on the morning after his triumph were shocked to receive in trust for this moppet a quarter of a million dollars as a first instalment of three coming to them and, ultimately, if he grows up, to him in the next three years.

Within 24 hours, Master Becker was being implored, or besieged, by sponsors of various collateral products on which the advertisers pray his splendour will rub off. Things like sweaters, tennis shoes, rackets and, no doubt in time, some crunchy, yummy vitamin-packed breakfast cereal that, for you and me, receives its nutritive value from the milk and sugar we put on it.

The whole story is a sort of comic strip that for exaggeration and ingenuity goes beyond Doonesbury or B.C.or Superman. On Friday, young Becker returned to his home town of Leiman and was driven round in triumph while the German press let off salvoes of jubilation. The Braunschweiger Zeitung, a newspaper not a paté, crowed and deservedly, 'This victory has ignited a long-absent wave of joy, a feeling of identity and pride throughout German for living' – for people, that is, who live in Germany.

The news item that reminded us that we are living in the real world was that, promptly, this week, Master Becker had moved his residence to Monte Carlo, which is, among many other desirable things, a tax haven and, as Boris moved in, coincidently, Bjorn moved out. Bjorn, being Bjorn Borg, the marvellous Swede who conquered Wimbledon so often that in his late twenties, he's an old retired pro. Not however, needing to go on welfare. Mr Borg said, movingly, that he could no longer go on living the sweet, alien life in that minute principality. 'My heart,' he said, 'lies deep in Sweden' and he's gone back to reclaim it. Bully for Borg!

I don't think it's cruel to add that we need not feel any sorrow that his repatriation is going to subject him to Sweden's rather ruinous rate of taxation. It was confidently reported that he has assets of something over $60 million already existing in stocks, currency, cement and steel or whatever. In other words, if he never sells another pair of Borg shorts or his favourite soft drink, he has already accumulated earnings that are beyond invasion by the tax people.

This realistic impulse among patriotic sportsmen to go where the living, or the taxing, is easy is a variation on the old American folk saying, 'I love my wife but oh you kid' and it's not restricted to sports heroes. Far from it. It's surrendered too most eagerly, I think, by rock stars and other assorted showbiz people whose countries tax them at a cruel, high rate. Not least, British film stars. I've known several of them who found their sanctuary usually in Switzerland or Spain. The odd thing is that, to a man, they always protested in private that their heart lay deep in England, but they soldiered on and left it there and simply mooned over it.

There's one man I can think of, now an old man, a little tottery but in his early eighties, otherwise hale and handsome still. He was a smasher in his time, recruited suddenly from the English stage and cast almost at once opposite the top glamour-pusses of the time. He's a very nice, genial man, not at all a show-off, but every other time I run into him, he gets me in a corner and tells me, wistfully, how hard it is not to be able to settle anywhere for long. He has, or had, a house in Hollywood. That's long gone. I think one in Ireland, a house in the South of France and a pad in London.

The pain of it all is that he can only stay in England for, I believe, 60 days, if he doesn't want to receive that ominous form which instructs him to list all income received and sign on the dotted line and that, of course, he can't work in England without being taxed. Last time I saw him, a summer or two ago, 'I can't tell you,' he said, 'how I feel on the evening of that 59th day when I have to pack and be on my way, the gnawing feeling of leaving home, the thoughts of my favourite countryside, the streets of London. It's indescribable.'

I almost responded like the character in a story by Saki, 'Thanks all the same for describing it to me!' What I did say, as offhandedly, as affably as possible, was, 'But if you love England so much, why not move back there and pay taxes like your beloved countrymen?' 'Well,' he said, 'I mean...' Meaning, I take it, there are morbid limits to one's yearning for the native land.

This emotional ordeal is something that does not afflict Americans. The United States and, I think, the Philippines of all unlikely places, are two countries that make their citizens pay taxes wherever they live and no matter for how long. An American can live in London or Timbuktu forever and whether or not he's required to pay taxes in the country he lives in, he must pay his federal income tax whether earned or unearned. Of course, there's many a fiddle between the earning and the reporting, but if you're caught, the penalties can be dire.

At least, they could until the Internal Revenue Service moved its records this year over on to computers. This has really gummed up the works. Shortly after 15 April, which is our deadline for paying our income tax – which to us persecuted residents of New York City means shelling out the year's national income tax, New York State income tax, New York City income tax (nothing to do with rates or property or electricity or water taxes, income), the state takes a percentage of your federal return and New York City comes in with a percentage of that.

Well, as I was saying, shortly after 15 April, the Internal Revenue Service put out a statement saying that, thanks to the wizardry of the new computer system, they were, I think it was, 15 million returns behind, so not to worry if you got a peremptory demand in June saying, 'Where's your income tax return?' They added that people who had not yet had a tax refund for overpayment last year should also not worry. It would be along any year now, complete with accumulated interest, provided the computers could compute it correctly. If not, file a complaint.

There's a story occurred to me that is true and that vividly, I think, reflects the delusion I first talked about – the belief of great figures in any field that they are household names everywhere. Now, I am a musical amateur and, as maybe four per cent of listeners know, an ageing golfer who will never surrender and I've had the privilege for 20 years or more of knowing two of the great maestros in both these fields.

One time, I was staying in a London hotel and I had a call from the man upstairs. 'What are you doing here?' he said. 'Well, for land's sake, what are you doing here?' It was the eminent conductor, Leonard Bernstein. He came down to have a nightcap and he started striding around complaining about an orchestra or the acoustics or whatever. 'Don't march around like that!' I said, 'This is hallowed ground. Do you know whose suite this is?' 'No!' 'It's Jack Nicklaus's suite.' 'Jack who?' he said.

About three months later, I was down in Georgia at a tournament and in a restful moment I told Nicklaus I'd had the high honour of living in his usual London suite. 'And who do you think was in the suite above yours?' 'Who?' he said. 'Leonard Bernstein!' I said.

He said – I guess you know what he said.

This transcript was typed from a recording of the original BBC broadcast (© BBC) and not copied from an original script. Because of the risk of mishearing, the BBC cannot vouch for its complete accuracy.

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