Court upholds Messi’s tax fraud sentence
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS EARLIER VERDICT BUT SENTENCE WILL PROBABLY BE SUSPENDED
pain’s Supreme Court yesterday confirmed a 21-month jail sentence and €2.09 million ($2.25 million) fine imposed on Lionel Messi for tax fraud, months after the Barcelona football star lodged an appeal.
The Argentina international and his father Jorge Horacio Messi were in July 2016 found guilty of using companies in Belize, Britain, Switzerland and Uruguay to avoid paying taxes on €4.16 million of Messi’s income earned from his image rights from 2007-09.
The income related to Messi’s image rights that was hidden includes endorsement deals with Danone, adidas, PepsiCola, Procter & Gamble and the Kuwait Food Company.
Both Messi and his father were given 21 months in jail — sentences likely to be suspended as is common in Spain for first offences for non-violent crimes carrying a sentence of less than two years.
They appealed to the Supreme Court. While the court confirmed the sentence for Messi yesterday, it reduced it to 15 months jail for his father, taking into account that his football star son had paid back the defrauded money to tax authorities.
During last year’s trial, Messi had argued that he trusted his father with his finances and “knew nothing” about how his wealth was managed. But the Supreme Court argued that he would have known about his obligation to pay taxes on income earned from his image rights.
Voter discontent
Messi’s tax fraud trial in June last year took place against a backdrop of simmering voter anger over steep cuts to health and social spending, as the government struggles to bring Spain’s public deficit down.
When news of the investigation first broke in the summer of 2013, Jorge Messi, acting on behalf of the Messis, was reported to have paid over €5 million in arrears and extra charges — he is also believed to have paid €10 million in taxes due on the image rights income for 2010 and 2011. Those actions are behind the six-month reduction in his sentence.
Messi said during last year’s trial that he signed many documents when he was younger without reading their contents and had visited a notary’s office to set up a company to handle his finances without understanding what was going on.
Mario Maza, the state attorney representing the tax authorities at the trial, said he found it unlikely that Messi knew nothing about the situation. “It could be that they are inexperienced with tax matters and the law and are not able to set up their own companies, but they are able to understand what paying your taxes means,” he said.
It could be that they are inexperienced with tax matters... but they are able to understand what paying your taxes means.” Mario Maza » State lawyer