Barcelona. Spanish prosecutors have charged soccer star Lionel Messi with tax fraud. The world footballer and his father Jorge Horacio Messi are said to have evaded more than four million euros in taxes. As the state news agency EFE reported on Wednesday, the special prosecutor’s office for economic crimes in Barcelona presented a lawsuit against the FC Barcelona professional and against the father, who is also Messi’s manager. Messi rejected the allegations.
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According to the public prosecutor’s office, there is a suspicion that the world footballer and his father withheld taxes totaling 4.1 million euros from the tax office in their tax returns for 2007, 2008 and 2009. They are said to have pretended to have assigned the international star’s advertising rights to front companies that were based in Latin American tax havens such as Belize and Uruguay.
In contrast, Messi emphasized: “We have never broken the laws.” He and his father were surprised by the allegations. They only found out about it through the press, Messi emphasized in a statement shared on Facebook. “We have always fulfilled our tax obligations and followed the advice of our tax advisors.” The advisors were commissioned to clarify the situation.
The public prosecutor’s office accused Messi and his father of arranging business contracts between the fake companies in the tax havens and other fake companies in Great Britain or Switzerland in order to deceive the tax authorities. The authority believes that the initiative to circumvent the Spanish tax authorities came from Messi’s father. In 2005, when the footballer was still a minor, he initiated the creation of the first fake company.
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In this way, the star’s advertising income flowed into tax havens and was subjected to practically no taxation, according to EFE, according to the authority’s lawsuit. In addition, Messi and his father concealed important data from the tax office in order to prevent the tax authorities from finding out about the transfers abroad.
The public prosecutor’s office is accusing the Barça star and his father of tax crimes, which can be punished with prison sentences of between two and six years according to the criminal code. In addition, according to the law, double to six times the amount of the evaded amount would have to be paid to the tax office.
SZ
