ESPN: Spain ‘s footballers’ trap tax evaders

In a time of prosperity and economic prosperity

more than 15 years ago, Spain was a paradise of football

stars around the world, and its strong league

-level football and tax advantages at the level of individuals’ wealth were truly attractive to all.
At that time, the Spanish public saw

stars like David Beckham, Frenchman

Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo leaving great

European tournaments to play in their country. Madrid was in the midst of a plan to attract talent from

all over the world and entice them with tax breaks

, .

Later, the situation changed.

Spain moved into a state of crisis. Its economy

faced austerity measures on the back of heavy debts and

budget deficits, which led to the improvement of the tax collection system, which later led to the discovery of scandals.

Shortly after David Beckham joined Real Madrid in

2003, he was able to enjoy a new tax exemption system aimed at attracting foreign talent to Spain in all sectors.
The system became known as the Beckham Act.

The Englishman was one of the first players to benefit from

a 24% income tax cap of 6 years, which means he will pay half as much tax as the Spanish themselves pay for incomes exceeding one million.

At the time, Spain was in the midst

of an unprecedented economic boom and became the favorite

place for the most famous football stars such as Zinedine

Zidane and Luis Figo, before the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo and the advent of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi.

But in 2010 the Beckham bill of over 600,000 euros

was abolished, and since then tax inspectors have begun to pay attention to the complex financial operations undertaken by offshore companies to circumvent tax laws.

The authorities later exposed several types of tax evasion

, such as creating fake private companies to hide their entry

and obtaining certain exemptions, or describing money earned from the sale of image rights as capital gains to benefit from a lower tax rate.

In the midst of an economic crisis suffered by the country as part of the euro

zone’s sovereign debt strikes, the Spanish government has stepped up its campaign of tax evasion in recent years as part of

its efforts to increase revenues to reduce the budget

deficit and implemented new procedures to detect those who do not declare all their income and assets as required by Spanish Tax Code.

At one time, Spain included the world’s three most famous football players

– Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Brazilian Neymar – but the three stars faced various charges of tax evasion in the country.

Over the course of 2016, it was common to see the trio surrounded by

accusations of tax fraud and other financial crimes by the Spanish

courts. It was common for the players to deny the

charges against them at the outset

, and with the investigation ends up a declaration of escape and settlement of a huge sum and a suspended sentence .

World soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and former

Real Madrid team mate Xabi Alonso will face a court in the Spanish capital Madrid on charges of tax evasion in the latest in a series of Spanish spies for tax evaders.

In Tuesday’s trial, Ronaldo is expected to pass the law and agree to a 16.4 million pound fine plus a suspended prison sentence.

Modern technological developments have allowed the Spanish

Tax Authority to expand access to

information on taxpayers, receiving data from some 800 different sources, and in 2011 and 2012, the Commission’s sources of information increased by 60%.

The Tax Office analyzes and reviews these data to detect and prevent tax

fraud and rely on every action taken by the

taxpayer to buy, sell, travel or even turn on lights at home, and the electricity consumption bill will reveal much about it.

The Spanish tax office has estimated that it raised more than €

40 billion in its fight against tax evasion and fraud between 2012 and 2015, the highest tax fraud results in history, according to Blevins Franks, a tax and wealth management consultancy.

The country has enacted laws requiring residents to register their assets abroad, and to prohibit cash payments of more than € 2,500 when one of the parties to a professional company or agent,

as well as automated information exchange systems under which the tax authority receives information about global assets per person annually without requesting it Regardless of the person’s consent.

In Spain, it is your responsibility to understand and comply with all

Spanish tax laws if you are a resident there, so you will not accept your apology for the law as Messi did when he claimed that his father is the only person who knows how to manage his money.

Lionel and his father, George, were convicted in 2016

of defrauding the Spanish state when they did not pay 4.1 million euros of

taxes owed by the player for copy rights

(for the attacker used in various advertisements) controlled by foreign companies in Belize (a small country in Central America) and Uruguay .

In Spain, too, you have to make your own taxes to

pay your money according to the laws.

If you do not, you will be prosecuted as a criminal and a smuggler,

so you would not benefit if you did like Ronaldo, who paid less money claiming that the rest of his earnings were from abroad. His taxes.

The legal team of Cristiano Ronaldo had said he was not to