How the Rolling Stones’ 1967 ‘Our Own’ Publishing Deal and Rolling Stones Records Led to Financial Autonomy—and a Decade of Tax Exile

The Stones’ fight for control over their own music actually backfired into a tax nightmare. In 1967, after years of being screwed by manager Allen Klein and their publisher, they formed “Our Own” (later called ABKCO, ironically), giving them 100% ownership of their songwriting copyrights. That move meant they kept publishing royalties instead of handing them to a third party—huge financial autonomy. But owning your own catalog also means you’re responsible for the tax bill on that income.

Then in 1970, after leaving Decca, they started Rolling Stones Records, a fully independent label distributed through Atlantic. They owned the masters, the art, the whole pipeline. That was radical for the time. But UK income tax had hit 83% for top earners, with an additional 15% surcharge on investment income. The Stones were suddenly sitting on massive publishing and label profits, and the British government wanted almost all of it. Their solution? Move out of the country. In 1971, right before the new tax year, the entire band packed up for the South of France, becoming tax exiles for the next decade. They recorded Exile on Main St. there, partly because they literally couldn’t afford to live