Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: asterix, Comics

Asterix Versus The Taxman

Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo is being targeted by the French tax officials for being an "illustrator" not an "author" and thus not eligible to tax breaks he's been claiming.

If successful, this could have serious implications for many comic creators in France.

He's been asked to pay €203,000 euros in unpaid tax revenue from on 24 Asteric books created with René Goscinny between 1959 and 1979.

After Goscinny diedm, the tax authorities considered subsequent books written by Uderzo to be eligible for authorial tax benefits – but nothing before.

Uderzo has told the Telegraph that it's all there in the contracts. "It was stipulated that I signed off the drawings and René Goscinny the texts, but that we formed one single author. Moreover, for each album, we met before getting stuck into the scenario to dream up a story. Goscinny worked according to my requirements and I to his."

The battle commences between the mighty authorities and this plucky Gaul. Have the government not read the Asterix books? Do they not know how this battle always ends? With a mighty PAF! and a tax official's helmet on the floor.

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