REAL MADRID STAR PLAYER, RONALDO ACCEPTS A 18.8 MILLION EURO FINE
Real Madrid player, Cristiano Ronaldo has agreed to pay the Spanish taxman 18.8 million euro ($20 million) to settle a tax fraud claim.
The deal between the authorities and the advisors of the player came hours before Portugal face Spain in the World Cup in Russia. The agreement still has to be sealed and will likely come with a two-year jail term, although sentences of up to two years are not generally served in the country, Spain.
The star player, who is at the World Cup, after a third straight Champions League title with Real madrid, appeared in court last July at Pozuelo de Alarcon, a wealthy Madrid suburb, to answer four counts of tax evasion. Procecutors gave allegegations that the five-time Ballon d’Or winner took advantage of a company structure created in 2010 to hide income generated in Spain from his image rights from tax authorities. He is alleged to have used companies in low-tax foreign jurisdictions, such as the British Virgin Islands and Ireland, to avoid having to pay tax.
In 2014, Spanish authorities say he was late in declaring that year 11.5 millions euros of revenue earned in Spain for the period 2011-2014 when his earnings in his country of residence totalled 43 million euros. The Spanish taxman also found he did not declare 28.4 million euros in image rights agreed for 2015-2020, leaving the star in debt of 14.7 million.
His legal team had blamed the crisis on a simple different interpretation of which revenue he was obliged to declare in Spain. In May, legal sources indicated that the Real madrid player,who is the world’s highest paid sportsman last year with $93 million for 2016-2017 according to Forbes magazine, had proposed to the prosecution team to make a 14 million settlement.
Had the case gone further, without the player offering a full settlement, he could have faced a fine of 28 millions euros as well as a three-and-a-half-year jail term. According to the Spanish tax office union Gestha.
Ronaldo’s big La Liga rival, Barcelona’s star Lionel Messi, paid a two-million-euro fine in 2016 in his own tax wrangle and received a 21-month jail term, the sentence was later reduced to a further fine of 252,000 euros equivalent to 400 euros per day of the original term. In a statement issued by the Gestifute sports agency which represents Ronaldo, it was stated that he that insisted last year, he had never hidden anything, nor has he had the intention of evading taxes.
The deal between the authorities and the advisors of the player came hours before Portugal face Spain in the World Cup in Russia. The agreement still has to be sealed and will likely come with a two-year jail term, although sentences of up to two years are not generally served in the country, Spain.
The star player, who is at the World Cup, after a third straight Champions League title with Real madrid, appeared in court last July at Pozuelo de Alarcon, a wealthy Madrid suburb, to answer four counts of tax evasion. Procecutors gave allegegations that the five-time Ballon d’Or winner took advantage of a company structure created in 2010 to hide income generated in Spain from his image rights from tax authorities. He is alleged to have used companies in low-tax foreign jurisdictions, such as the British Virgin Islands and Ireland, to avoid having to pay tax.
In 2014, Spanish authorities say he was late in declaring that year 11.5 millions euros of revenue earned in Spain for the period 2011-2014 when his earnings in his country of residence totalled 43 million euros. The Spanish taxman also found he did not declare 28.4 million euros in image rights agreed for 2015-2020, leaving the star in debt of 14.7 million.
His legal team had blamed the crisis on a simple different interpretation of which revenue he was obliged to declare in Spain. In May, legal sources indicated that the Real madrid player,who is the world’s highest paid sportsman last year with $93 million for 2016-2017 according to Forbes magazine, had proposed to the prosecution team to make a 14 million settlement.
Had the case gone further, without the player offering a full settlement, he could have faced a fine of 28 millions euros as well as a three-and-a-half-year jail term. According to the Spanish tax office union Gestha.
Ronaldo’s big La Liga rival, Barcelona’s star Lionel Messi, paid a two-million-euro fine in 2016 in his own tax wrangle and received a 21-month jail term, the sentence was later reduced to a further fine of 252,000 euros equivalent to 400 euros per day of the original term. In a statement issued by the Gestifute sports agency which represents Ronaldo, it was stated that he that insisted last year, he had never hidden anything, nor has he had the intention of evading taxes.
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