Messi pays pre-emptive €10 million tax La Vanguardia reports that according to sources who are well informed of the current Messi- taxes matter, Lionel Messi has filed complimentary tax returns for the years 2010 and 2011.The extra taxes paid are in the amount of 10 million euros, and is seen as a preemptive payment to any investigations that the tax authorities may conduct for those two years, after Messi’s tax payments for the three years starting 2007 to 2009 were brought to trial. Although Messi and his legal team are sure that no tax infringement has been knowingly committed, it seems that they do not trust that the same questioning and scrutiny that is facing the three years (2007-9), won’t also happen for these later two years. By submitting these correctional paperwork regarding previous tax returns, it is also being implied that Leo is prepared to cover any debated tax sum, and is trying to strike a deal of paying any possible missing taxes, if they are confirmed so in court. The background of this issue is that Lionel Messi and his father, Jorge Horacio Messi, have been accused by Barcelona’s Financial Crimes Unit of evading tax payments for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 for earning from Leo’s image rights. The disputed sum is 4.1 million euros, and although Jorge Messi has said that all tax matters were done legally such as setting up offshore companies to reduce the tax burden, the prosecutor’s office decided to take matters to court on June 12th. The hearing is scheduled for the 17th of September in the town of Gavá, and if found guilty, Messi could face up to five years in prison as well as a financial penalty up to six times the disputed tax amount. According to the prosecutor’s claims, Messi obtained significant revenue between 2007 and 2009 after securing image rights deals with Adidas, Danone, Banc Sabadell, Pepsi, Telefonica,Konami and his parent club FC Barcelona. Messi had earned 10.1 million euros in those three years, for which the tax authorities estimate a 4.1 million euros tax payment should be made. Messi’s legal team are defending against this by showing that no evasion was made, and that Messi and his father were operating legally.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 05:16:26 +0000
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