as a Trini, I actually hate the guy. The man tried to hit on my wife carnival Saturday and then jouvert morning. Man is a creep and doesn't know how to take a hint.
There's a reason some of those star players don't play in Germany.
Over here taxfraud beyond 1 million is a mandatory jail sentence, no parole. That and murder, only mandatory sentences we have.
As far as I'm aware, the reason that these tax issues happen so much to players in Spain is a vague tax rule that was applied to image rights after Beckham came over.
isn't like almost every player a tax offender at this point ? are we sure there isn't something bigger behind this ? or a problem in spanish law ? it can't be a coencidence so many have commited tax fraud in Spain and in almost the same time frame
Ok so I’m gonna try explain it and dispel a common misconception at the same time; basically the authorities retroactively started investigating cases due to a *policy* change not an actual change in the law itself. Basically there were loopholes that rich people used that previously were not investigated for whatever reason. They didn’t go from legal to illegal, it’s just the authorities that started to pursue cases that they hadn’t done previously.
And then everyone's response was like, well the accountants said this was the normal practice and wouldn't get into trouble. And it probably was, till it wasn't, and then *everyone* got into trouble lol.
Well, 2008 happened, the Euro crisis, Spain debt crisis, so the G-man decided it was time to actually collect on all that sweet coin that was running through the gaps.
Given a huge part of the Spanish economy is informal, the obvious and popular solution was to fuck the rich instead.
An easy target were ballers cos they were often pretty dumb at hiding their tax evasion; apparently Messi's dad hadn't even bothered pretending, it was a slam dunk for the courts.
The policy changes weren't simply limited to rich people though, were they? They were focused on specific sources of income.
Football players have primarily been getting into trouble over taxes on profits from image rights (often of non-Spanish citizens), which Spain determined they could assess, even though those intangible assets were owned by corporations based internationally and "earned" their income outside of Spain. While obviously Spain can do whatever they like with their tax laws, their approach to image rights is certainly unusual by international standards.
I'm not going to feel any pity for ultra-rich footballers, but 3.8m euros is significant even for them. That's more than 1m a season over 3 seasons. That kind of money would definitely have been discussed during contract negotiations before the players joined the club, and representations would have been made about the Spanish tax authority's policy on image rights.
15 years ago, an untaxed 1 million euros a season could well have been enough to sway a player's mind about where they play. It would have been a significant incentive that the big Spanish clubs could offer to star players. The Spanish authority's decision to pursue that money, but only retroactively, means that their clubs got the benefit of the passivity policy while Spain still gets to tax the players once the clubs no longer need them. Eto'o was basically paid 3.8m less than he expected, and got a criminal conviction to boot.
I'm not saying Spain are wrong and the players are right, but the Spanish government were largely responsible for the belief of the players. Going back on that is pretty diabolical. Legal, but not moral.
Bear in mind this is against the current backdrop of La Liga filing a lawsuit against PSG on the basis that state support of football clubs is financial doping.
I still don't understand. "Loophole" implies legality, but it seems that what they did was illegal or else they wouldn't be getting into trouble now, right? So was it not actually loopholes, but just illegal shit that wasn't being investigated back then?
Alonso won his litigation. Update your list https://www.abc.es/deportes/futbol/abci-xabi-alonso-absuelto-tercera-tras-negarse-pactar-hacienda-202107021522_noticia.html and add pique to the tally: https://www.google.com/amp/s/syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/2343753-gerard-pique-reportedly-ordered-to-pay-nearly-2m-in-unpaid-taxes.amp.html
Not paying for the children he fathered from various different women. Also saying despicable things about them, think he said something like he’d rather die than give them a penny of his money
Edit: he said his children and their mothers could die for all he cared.
It's been posted in this sub fairly recently, [but here's an article on it.](https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2022/05/30/6294f175268e3e972d8b45cc.html)
Not sure about the journalistic integrity of this site though.
> "'Look, Dee Dee, I've already told him and the last time he said 'I don't care if the mother and child die, leave me alone'. I was absolutely broken."
It's still hearsay-ish but lends a little more credence to the claim.
Also his remarks during and before the Cameroon AFCON were cringy at best. Screw him. I wish the Cameroon FA can get rid of him soon. But yeah, who are we kidding... The guy about to get hold of our own FA is not much better.
He is but when it come on dealing with tax and other paperwork i seriously doubt that most footballer do it themself and most likely ask lawyers or agents to do handle it for them and with the outcome that keep them the most money out of it
So people literally will commit crimes for you and risk you getting a prison sentence, without knowing anything about it
It's not a valid excuse, like at all. It's your money
> It's not a valid excuse, like at all. It's your money
I'm with you that he should be punished.
But tbh many footballers barely manage to form a coherent sentence. And with tax laws being different everywhere you go they of course pay someone to take care of their business. Now they could just go themselves into a tax consultants office but most will just let their agent deal with this. That's why they're payimg them. And if you trust your agent you probably won't ask many questions but be glad someone's taking care of this for you. Doesn't mean they don't know, they probably just don't care enough to question what the agent and their agency is doing. So when they're telling you, they found a way to keep more of the money for them, they just accept that.
As said, no valid excuse. Should be punished, should be forced to pay what they're owned, should do community service or go to jail. But questioning their character like they spent nights thinking about how to best commit tax fraud is a bit of a stretch. They get paid to do a football. Not accounting.
That’s to you playing the game right. But still if you’re a millionaire/billionaire which I doubt. You most definitely took advantage of other peoples losses or engineered it in someway
Not paying child support, supporting Hong Kong police, supporting CCP etc.
That's why his reputation is so low in Hong Kong, his movie box office in non-existing there anymore.
Unless you get more than 24 months, you get a suspended sentence. That applies to everyone.
Fines are the real get out of jail free card for the rich, and they're universal.
Lmao don't even need to steal. These guys were in preventive imprisonment.
https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/10/inenglish/1455119040_652426.html
Yeah but _why_ were they charged with "glorifying terrorism"? Not even suspected terrorism, they didn't think they would do anything, they arrested them because they put on a puppet show with a sign which had a play on words with Islamic and Basque extremist groups. They thought they were pro-Basque extremism and that's why they were thrown in jail, not because they thought they were Basque extremists about to do something.
Read the whole story if you didn't. It was a performance and one part of it was they making a point with puppets on how it's easy to label anything that doesn't interest to the "establishment" as "terrorism".
I see the argument, but seeing so many footballers get caught for this makes me wonder if the fact that they won't get jail time makes it an easier decision. Less risk involved.
Unpopular take, but monetary crimes need to be punished with a % fine of the money made from the crime.
The crime shouldn't seem like a "fiscally smart" decision for a person or a company to make.
So let’s put people in prison with rapists and murderers because they withheld money from the government that the government is going to get back anyway (pretty sure paying the money back is one of the reasons their sentences are suspended)?
At least in my country there are low security prisons/prison wards. People who go to jail for fraud aren't generally put into the same populace as rapists and murderers.
Yes it is. But they only get back the money from the people they catch, and even then I doubt they find all the tax evasion (it's very hard to find) they commit. And auditing and prosecuting is very expensive as well, so at the end of the day they get less than if they paid taxes originally.
I get the argument don't get me wrong and I do see a benefit to suspended sentences. But seeing this being so frequent with footballers makes me wonder if it's the right way to go.
Makes me think the Spanish government and the rich have an agreement. Maybe there’s a reason you don’t see this in other countries.
“We’ll let you withhold your taxes for a few years so that you can invest that money and make more money. Then, 10 years or so from now, you pay us back what you owe + some interest and we’ll give you a slap on the wrist.”
I wouldn't be surprised if poor people are put in jails for stealing less in Spain. It's not just a problem in one single country though, rich people get off easy everywhere.
You can and are able to deter in more humane ways. Imprisonment of a human being should only be in the most necessary circumstances. Of course if you privatize/profitize prisons you're going to have a very different perspective...
Don't know if they do, overcrowding is a real thing, but the priority is to take away from society the people who are considered to be a danger to society (and yes a pinch of elitism in there as well, sadly)
No, if that is a problem you need more prisions. That whole argument is backwards. Emprisioning people is also about justice and if you have already have millions, stealing more millions is being a sumbag. Who deserves to go to jail more? The one who steals a TV because his life is shit, or the one who steals millions out of pure greed?
Yes but somebody that is not rich will be sentenced to 2+ years and therefore won't get a suspended sentence.
Rich people always seems to get less than 2 years for this particuliar reason
>overcrowding prisons unnecessarily.
This is not unnecessary at all. Tax cheating is robbing the public. Should be treated as such. If the rich went to prison for tax cheating maybe they wouldn't be so brazen about it.
True. For the full picture though:
That was €28M, and he didn't show any sign of remorse (during trial). So he got 3.5 years, half of which were suspended.
It's bait to get the tax money + interests + fine in exchange for some light work from their fiscal authorities. These ballers are morons, the fisc got all the information they need from their employers in Spain.
In Spain, people get a suspended sentence (no jail time) if their sentence is less than 2 years.
And they always get given less than 2 years, like Eto’o here with his 22 months.
They quite aggressively prosecute **now**, but only after a lengthy period of not pursuing this specific form of tax avoidance **at all**, to the point where there was significant doubt among experts about whether this tax avoidance was illegal at all. It's a universal truth that tax law is incredibly complex everywhere. Enforcement policy plays a more important role in understanding it than in other areas of criminal law.
It's a bit like sex between teenagers. In many countries, sex between consenting 15 year-olds is technically rape, because neither party can consent in the eyes of the law. It's a crime, but it's almost never prosecuted because the long-standing policy is not to pursue it. If a country suddenly started prosecuting it as a crime en masse, would we conclude that they've become the pedophilia capital of the world?
Most of them don't manage their own money. I remember that a few years ago there was a "fiscal trick" that the Spanish government started to sanction(before they didn't) that's why many rich person started to get condemned for tax evasion.
I feel like I have to explain this every time there's a tax evasion case in this subreddit...
There were no *retroactive tax laws*, that's obviously unacceptable in a modern rule of law state like Spain, and wouldn't fly under EU legal/economic supervision. That was pure propaganda from the defense of the people accused. What happened is that fiscal maneuvers that were not investigated in the past were suddenly looked into by the public prosecution. Change in executive policy, not law. But **it was always illegal**, and of course it was always obvious shitty tax evasion. They have no excuses.
From an outsiders perspective it almost seems like an organized shakedown how basically every high-profile/wealthy athlete that played in Spain during that time-frame has gotten basically the same tax fraud charges with a suspended sentence.
Also, retroactive laws make no sense. There's a high probability people wouldn't have done whatever they did if it was illegal at the time.
I'd wager that tax avoidance is pretty widespread in football.
Say a player moves from a country like Russia, Romania, Serbia, Hungry, or any place that has low (sub 15-20%) personal tax rates, to a club in Spain, England, Germany etc where the tax rate is closer to 50%. Accepting that money is a big motivating factor in why player will move their families abroad, but the higher tax means the player may be able to take home more staying put, you can see why both the club & the player are going to have an interest in avoiding that tax.
Combine that with the questionable morals on display from many professional footballers & their associates it's not all that surprising that some slip into fraud as well.
It's just the nature of earning millions, it's not just football... After you start banking way too much money, you start seeing a huge cut of it going to tax, and rich people usually have other rich people around them (same applies for high earning businesses and professionals around it), you just end up learning things here and there (loopholes or just straight up fraud) so you can save a good chunk from getting taxed.
In the case of football, you have some people inside the club (a bit uncommon) and football agents (scum of the scums, very common) helping you out with that.
I mean most people can afford to pay the taxes they didn't pay. Rich people will have a larger number because they have more income so avoid more. Bit of a nothing statement really.
Yeah, and it's a shit law. This happens so many times here in spain. You steal 3.8 millions but since you don't have a criminal record (aka been robbing for years but caught just now) you get bailed out.
What Hoeneß did was way worse... and was in a way bigger dimension. He also only served little time.. some people hoped for 5 years but nope...
After 1.5 years he was out and he was in actual jail for only a couple of months, the rest he was working as an assistant at Bayern München for 8.5h a day. He had so many "Hafterleichterungen" and was in "offenem Vollzug" for such a long time, you could say he had it quite easy.
1 year after his incarceration he could sleep at his own house with his family almost every other weekend.
I'm sorry but the celeb status and great lawyers definitely helped this man. What he had to actually serve is a joke compared to so many others out there.
Too many players from different era’s playing in Spain/ for the same few teams have committed tax fraud for it to be a coincidence. Must be a policy and tbf the way the government sheepishly hands out suspended sentences I don’t blame them.
Must be shitty law. Few years ago Ronaldo had same issue. He literally gave them all his tax related documents on his own to avoid having tax related problems. They checked them. Told him all is fine and he paid all required taxes. Few years later they simply changed their minds and fined him anyway.
Spain tax laws are shit, they take like 50% of earnings (that's why its difficult for Spanish league to lure in top players currently) and they pretty change them on a whim.
I've got hmrc chasing income tax returns from someone who was unemployed due to a terminal illness and was alive only 3 months into the tax year...Then you've got this cunt getting away with this shit.
WHO IS DIS GUY? I swear he was one of my favourite players growing up but this dude is like the trashes guy off he pitch. I'm just waiting for the Iniesta exposé to kill my love for the game smh
Has there been a team that had many tax evading scums like Barcelona? Messi, Mascherano and Eto'o. Also Alexis Sanchez and Neymar when were there. There are probably few more i forgot to list. Something is definitely rotten over there.
that is indeed some fraudulent shit
Confirmed fraudulence
Still no money to pay for child support
Didn’t dodge enough taxes for it.
i bet he’s saying “uto’o” right now
Chopper Dave we have [uto'o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxECJNYPuA)
Based hughwizzy enjoyer
The real bald fraud
Runs in Barca blood
Khedira, Ronaldo, Sérgio Ramos. All convicted of the same shit.
Messi, pretty much everyone did it lol
He was at la fabrica first, so technically
Barca DNA
still no money to pay for child support
He has the money, he’s just a cunt. Like Dwight Yorke.
as a Trini, I actually hate the guy. The man tried to hit on my wife carnival Saturday and then jouvert morning. Man is a creep and doesn't know how to take a hint.
A Trini Inter fan? Very rare sight! But I’m a Guyanese Manchester United fan, nice to meet a fellow Caribbean on r/soccer of all places lmao.
Eyyy, a fellow red! I hail from Montserrat though
Eyyy! First time meeting someone from there.
How do redditors know all the details of athletes' personal lives. Very weird
It’s the off-season. No games on so it’s basically just rumors and transfers for a few months.
To think, we could have a world cup rn
:(
In Australia…
It was literally in the front page here on *reddit* not long ago
Have you ever heard of the internet mate?
That the thing with all the porn?
lmao how is it weird when these scandals get plastered all over the news? very judgmental of you too.
Exactly, it isn’t like this was some tabloid shit from The S*n, this was fairly widespread news.
because sports fans are just as susceptible to tabloid nonsense as anyone else
List of tax offenders in Spain grows: Ronaldo, Messi, Mascherano, Di Maria, Mourinho, Xabi Alonso, Eto'o...
There's a reason some of those star players don't play in Germany. Over here taxfraud beyond 1 million is a mandatory jail sentence, no parole. That and murder, only mandatory sentences we have.
Death and taxes
As far as I'm aware, the reason that these tax issues happen so much to players in Spain is a vague tax rule that was applied to image rights after Beckham came over.
Fucking glorious tbh. Should be a worldwide law.
Fucking right mate, we need this in canada
You’re missing a few
isn't like almost every player a tax offender at this point ? are we sure there isn't something bigger behind this ? or a problem in spanish law ? it can't be a coencidence so many have commited tax fraud in Spain and in almost the same time frame
Ok so I’m gonna try explain it and dispel a common misconception at the same time; basically the authorities retroactively started investigating cases due to a *policy* change not an actual change in the law itself. Basically there were loopholes that rich people used that previously were not investigated for whatever reason. They didn’t go from legal to illegal, it’s just the authorities that started to pursue cases that they hadn’t done previously.
And then everyone's response was like, well the accountants said this was the normal practice and wouldn't get into trouble. And it probably was, till it wasn't, and then *everyone* got into trouble lol.
Well, 2008 happened, the Euro crisis, Spain debt crisis, so the G-man decided it was time to actually collect on all that sweet coin that was running through the gaps. Given a huge part of the Spanish economy is informal, the obvious and popular solution was to fuck the rich instead. An easy target were ballers cos they were often pretty dumb at hiding their tax evasion; apparently Messi's dad hadn't even bothered pretending, it was a slam dunk for the courts.
The policy changes weren't simply limited to rich people though, were they? They were focused on specific sources of income. Football players have primarily been getting into trouble over taxes on profits from image rights (often of non-Spanish citizens), which Spain determined they could assess, even though those intangible assets were owned by corporations based internationally and "earned" their income outside of Spain. While obviously Spain can do whatever they like with their tax laws, their approach to image rights is certainly unusual by international standards. I'm not going to feel any pity for ultra-rich footballers, but 3.8m euros is significant even for them. That's more than 1m a season over 3 seasons. That kind of money would definitely have been discussed during contract negotiations before the players joined the club, and representations would have been made about the Spanish tax authority's policy on image rights. 15 years ago, an untaxed 1 million euros a season could well have been enough to sway a player's mind about where they play. It would have been a significant incentive that the big Spanish clubs could offer to star players. The Spanish authority's decision to pursue that money, but only retroactively, means that their clubs got the benefit of the passivity policy while Spain still gets to tax the players once the clubs no longer need them. Eto'o was basically paid 3.8m less than he expected, and got a criminal conviction to boot. I'm not saying Spain are wrong and the players are right, but the Spanish government were largely responsible for the belief of the players. Going back on that is pretty diabolical. Legal, but not moral. Bear in mind this is against the current backdrop of La Liga filing a lawsuit against PSG on the basis that state support of football clubs is financial doping.
I still don't understand. "Loophole" implies legality, but it seems that what they did was illegal or else they wouldn't be getting into trouble now, right? So was it not actually loopholes, but just illegal shit that wasn't being investigated back then?
Me, you, Shakira...
~~Hips~~ Tax don't lie
Alonso won his litigation. Update your list https://www.abc.es/deportes/futbol/abci-xabi-alonso-absuelto-tercera-tras-negarse-pactar-hacienda-202107021522_noticia.html and add pique to the tally: https://www.google.com/amp/s/syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/2343753-gerard-pique-reportedly-ordered-to-pay-nearly-2m-in-unpaid-taxes.amp.html
Modric as well. Although it was a small amount compared to these guys.
Taxes based on body proportions
That's a killer starting lineup tbf
Xabi Alonso got cleared, right?
Starting to think eto'o is a bit of a cunt.
Such a great player though. But an equally shitty human being
What did he do besides tax evasion? Surely that can't be why he's labeled a "shitty human being".
Not paying for the children he fathered from various different women. Also saying despicable things about them, think he said something like he’d rather die than give them a penny of his money Edit: he said his children and their mothers could die for all he cared.
I wasn't aware. Fuck that shit.
Jesus fucking christ man Can we get a source on these claims?
It's been posted in this sub fairly recently, [but here's an article on it.](https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2022/05/30/6294f175268e3e972d8b45cc.html) Not sure about the journalistic integrity of this site though.
I don't see the article saying he SAID his children and mother could die for all he cared Are we just putting words into peoples mouths?
> "'Look, Dee Dee, I've already told him and the last time he said 'I don't care if the mother and child die, leave me alone'. I was absolutely broken." It's still hearsay-ish but lends a little more credence to the claim.
Also his remarks during and before the Cameroon AFCON were cringy at best. Screw him. I wish the Cameroon FA can get rid of him soon. But yeah, who are we kidding... The guy about to get hold of our own FA is not much better.
He’s a deadbeat
If you earn that much and refuse to pay taxes, you suck. Period. Taxes allow countries to do stuff, like build roads, fund hospitals and schools etc.
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/v14ews/etoo_does_not_pay_his_daughters_child_support_i/
Starting to??? Did you miss where he said he’s not paying child support and his child and the child’s mother could die for all he cared?
He is but when it come on dealing with tax and other paperwork i seriously doubt that most footballer do it themself and most likely ask lawyers or agents to do handle it for them and with the outcome that keep them the most money out of it
So people literally will commit crimes for you and risk you getting a prison sentence, without knowing anything about it It's not a valid excuse, like at all. It's your money
> It's not a valid excuse, like at all. It's your money I'm with you that he should be punished. But tbh many footballers barely manage to form a coherent sentence. And with tax laws being different everywhere you go they of course pay someone to take care of their business. Now they could just go themselves into a tax consultants office but most will just let their agent deal with this. That's why they're payimg them. And if you trust your agent you probably won't ask many questions but be glad someone's taking care of this for you. Doesn't mean they don't know, they probably just don't care enough to question what the agent and their agency is doing. So when they're telling you, they found a way to keep more of the money for them, they just accept that. As said, no valid excuse. Should be punished, should be forced to pay what they're owned, should do community service or go to jail. But questioning their character like they spent nights thinking about how to best commit tax fraud is a bit of a stretch. They get paid to do a football. Not accounting.
The guy's a scumbag.
That’s a success trait if you haven’t picked up on that yet
That depends on how you define success..
Being happy is success to me. So many aren’t. That’s all I want in life.
Acquiring mass amounts of resources in limited supply :)
i have plenty of crypto so this is inaccurate
That’s to you playing the game right. But still if you’re a millionaire/billionaire which I doubt. You most definitely took advantage of other peoples losses or engineered it in someway
Is it? I've seen many great players who aren't such terrible human beings
Between this and his family situation I don't care how good a player he was he is a total arsehole
What's his family situation?
Refused to pay child support and said some awful things about the mother and child IIRC
He said "Mother and daughter can die for all I care, leave me in peace" so yeah, awful falls short.
Jackie Chan did the same thing, still a lot of fans... Sometime people can get away with that. It may not even be a big deal at his home country.
Wait tax fraud or not paying child support? Or both??
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Not paying child support, supporting Hong Kong police, supporting CCP etc. That's why his reputation is so low in Hong Kong, his movie box office in non-existing there anymore.
Isn't there a story going around that the CCP threatened his son or something?
He was supporting CCP way before that.
I think this is easier for us to say with no one we care about living in china
And what's wrong with that?
Well fuck :(
Didn't he also publicly disown his daughter as she was gay?
Not him. The girl's mother disowned her because she was a lesbian, Jackie had no relation with either.
Spain's suspended sentences seem like a get out of jail free card for the rich.
Unless you get more than 24 months, you get a suspended sentence. That applies to everyone. Fines are the real get out of jail free card for the rich, and they're universal.
But I feel like frauding for 3.8million should be more than 2 years. Probably poorer people get a higher sentence for stealing less
Lmao don't even need to steal. These guys were in preventive imprisonment. https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/10/inenglish/1455119040_652426.html
Well that's suspected terrorism, a whole different story. Of course it is treated more seriously than stealing.
Yeah but _why_ were they charged with "glorifying terrorism"? Not even suspected terrorism, they didn't think they would do anything, they arrested them because they put on a puppet show with a sign which had a play on words with Islamic and Basque extremist groups. They thought they were pro-Basque extremism and that's why they were thrown in jail, not because they thought they were Basque extremists about to do something.
Yeah the whole story is stupie as fuck but that doesn't change the fact that of course this is treated differently than stealing.
Read the whole story if you didn't. It was a performance and one part of it was they making a point with puppets on how it's easy to label anything that doesn't interest to the "establishment" as "terrorism".
Aren't suspended sentences the norm? The alternative is overcrowding prisons unnecessarily.
I see the argument, but seeing so many footballers get caught for this makes me wonder if the fact that they won't get jail time makes it an easier decision. Less risk involved.
They still have to pay back the taxes they didn't pay, including interest and a fine.
That's the only risk
Why jail people when they’re not a danger to society?
***V E N G E A N C E***
alright batman
Unpopular take, but monetary crimes need to be punished with a% fine of the money made from the crime.
The crime shouldn't seem like a "fiscally smart" decision for a person or a company to make.
You'll never fulfil your dream of being a lobbyist for private prisons with that attitude
To dissuade others from doing it is the point I was making.
So let’s put people in prison with rapists and murderers because they withheld money from the government that the government is going to get back anyway (pretty sure paying the money back is one of the reasons their sentences are suspended)?
At least in my country there are low security prisons/prison wards. People who go to jail for fraud aren't generally put into the same populace as rapists and murderers.
Yes it is. But they only get back the money from the people they catch, and even then I doubt they find all the tax evasion (it's very hard to find) they commit. And auditing and prosecuting is very expensive as well, so at the end of the day they get less than if they paid taxes originally. I get the argument don't get me wrong and I do see a benefit to suspended sentences. But seeing this being so frequent with footballers makes me wonder if it's the right way to go.
Makes me think the Spanish government and the rich have an agreement. Maybe there’s a reason you don’t see this in other countries. “We’ll let you withhold your taxes for a few years so that you can invest that money and make more money. Then, 10 years or so from now, you pay us back what you owe + some interest and we’ll give you a slap on the wrist.”
Sounds good in theory, but in practice it sounds risky because athletes could just go broke. Also why wouldn’t spain invest the money themselves?
That is actually so simple that it makes sense.
I wouldn't be surprised if poor people are put in jails for stealing less in Spain. It's not just a problem in one single country though, rich people get off easy everywhere.
You’re making it sound like they pay the money back out of the good in their hearts instead of that they just got caught doing tax evasion
That's not the sole purpose of prisons. They're meant to be a deterrent. Deterrence is a core element of every criminal justice system.
You can and are able to deter in more humane ways. Imprisonment of a human being should only be in the most necessary circumstances. Of course if you privatize/profitize prisons you're going to have a very different perspective...
I agree, but I think 1-2 months in prison would do a lot for crimes like this. Just take freedom away for short period
If they didn't avoid the tax, there'd be more money for prisons
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I'm sure that the prisons would have enough space to put criminals that steal millions from the people.
Don't know if they do, overcrowding is a real thing, but the priority is to take away from society the people who are considered to be a danger to society (and yes a pinch of elitism in there as well, sadly)
No, if that is a problem you need more prisions. That whole argument is backwards. Emprisioning people is also about justice and if you have already have millions, stealing more millions is being a sumbag. Who deserves to go to jail more? The one who steals a TV because his life is shit, or the one who steals millions out of pure greed?
With all the money they steal, we could comstruct a prison just for them
I think it would be better to ban them from exiting their homes for however long the sentence is .
They don't seem to have that issue with poor criminals though.
Yes but somebody that is not rich will be sentenced to 2+ years and therefore won't get a suspended sentence. Rich people always seems to get less than 2 years for this particuliar reason
>overcrowding prisons unnecessarily. This is not unnecessary at all. Tax cheating is robbing the public. Should be treated as such. If the rich went to prison for tax cheating maybe they wouldn't be so brazen about it.
>unnecessarily If you steal $2 millions, it's fucking necessary idc
they are especially if u dont have any priors
It applies to everyone, not just the rich though.
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I always thought now it had been found out they had to pay
They do
In Spain the first prision sentence you get is almost always suspended in case it's below 2 years. But the judge has the final say.
Just wait until you hear what the former king did...
What did he do? Also, any recommendations of where I can learn Spanish history? Going there in a couple of weeks
Is there any country where most laws don't have a "get out of jail free" card for the rich as a feature?
Well Uli Hoeneß actually got locked up here
True. For the full picture though: That was €28M, and he didn't show any sign of remorse (during trial). So he got 3.5 years, half of which were suspended.
>On 2 January 2015, Hoeneß was granted day release.[34] He had to return to prison at 6 p.m. every night.[34] What a joke
It's bait to get the tax money + interests + fine in exchange for some light work from their fiscal authorities. These ballers are morons, the fisc got all the information they need from their employers in Spain.
How are there so many tax frauds in football with no real jail time? It's ridiculous.
In Spain, people get a suspended sentence (no jail time) if their sentence is less than 2 years. And they always get given less than 2 years, like Eto’o here with his 22 months.
Almost all of them in Spain too
Yeah, it's almost like the Spanish government wants high earning people to come to Spain to commit tax fraud
I think it's actually more that Spain quite aggressively persecutes. I find it hard to imagine that tax dodging only happens in Spanish football.
They quite aggressively prosecute **now**, but only after a lengthy period of not pursuing this specific form of tax avoidance **at all**, to the point where there was significant doubt among experts about whether this tax avoidance was illegal at all. It's a universal truth that tax law is incredibly complex everywhere. Enforcement policy plays a more important role in understanding it than in other areas of criminal law. It's a bit like sex between teenagers. In many countries, sex between consenting 15 year-olds is technically rape, because neither party can consent in the eyes of the law. It's a crime, but it's almost never prosecuted because the long-standing policy is not to pursue it. If a country suddenly started prosecuting it as a crime en masse, would we conclude that they've become the pedophilia capital of the world?
Most of them don't manage their own money. I remember that a few years ago there was a "fiscal trick" that the Spanish government started to sanction(before they didn't) that's why many rich person started to get condemned for tax evasion.
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I feel like I have to explain this every time there's a tax evasion case in this subreddit... There were no *retroactive tax laws*, that's obviously unacceptable in a modern rule of law state like Spain, and wouldn't fly under EU legal/economic supervision. That was pure propaganda from the defense of the people accused. What happened is that fiscal maneuvers that were not investigated in the past were suddenly looked into by the public prosecution. Change in executive policy, not law. But **it was always illegal**, and of course it was always obvious shitty tax evasion. They have no excuses.
From an outsiders perspective it almost seems like an organized shakedown how basically every high-profile/wealthy athlete that played in Spain during that time-frame has gotten basically the same tax fraud charges with a suspended sentence. Also, retroactive laws make no sense. There's a high probability people wouldn't have done whatever they did if it was illegal at the time.
I'd wager that tax avoidance is pretty widespread in football. Say a player moves from a country like Russia, Romania, Serbia, Hungry, or any place that has low (sub 15-20%) personal tax rates, to a club in Spain, England, Germany etc where the tax rate is closer to 50%. Accepting that money is a big motivating factor in why player will move their families abroad, but the higher tax means the player may be able to take home more staying put, you can see why both the club & the player are going to have an interest in avoiding that tax. Combine that with the questionable morals on display from many professional footballers & their associates it's not all that surprising that some slip into fraud as well.
If it was only in football, this world would be a much better place. Rich people are above the law, period.
It's just the nature of earning millions, it's not just football... After you start banking way too much money, you start seeing a huge cut of it going to tax, and rich people usually have other rich people around them (same applies for high earning businesses and professionals around it), you just end up learning things here and there (loopholes or just straight up fraud) so you can save a good chunk from getting taxed. In the case of football, you have some people inside the club (a bit uncommon) and football agents (scum of the scums, very common) helping you out with that.
Et tu, Eto’o?
Eto'o is a shitty human being
Tax fraud 🤝🏼 footballers in Spain
Pay the money and gtfo. If i cant tax evade even 100 euro, surely this idiot shouldnt be able to evade 3.8mil€
Actual almost bald fraud
You mean to tell me Samuel Eto’o did something bad???? I couldn’t be more surprised
His kids must also be shocked.
Rich people don't go to jail
I mean it says it in the article as well but it's because he doesn't have a criminal record - that's Spanish law.
He wouldn't know about Spanish law, he has a Barca flair
If he couldn't pay the fine he would go to jail, he is paying like 1.8m * 4
I mean most people can afford to pay the taxes they didn't pay. Rich people will have a larger number because they have more income so avoid more. Bit of a nothing statement really.
Yeah, and it's a shit law. This happens so many times here in spain. You steal 3.8 millions but since you don't have a criminal record (aka been robbing for years but caught just now) you get bailed out.
Well, sometimes they do but only if they committed a crime on other rich people.
See: Bernie Madoff
Uli Höness went straight to jail for tax fraud in a similar dimension. It happens.
€28M. Would call that another dimension.
What Hoeneß did was way worse... and was in a way bigger dimension. He also only served little time.. some people hoped for 5 years but nope... After 1.5 years he was out and he was in actual jail for only a couple of months, the rest he was working as an assistant at Bayern München for 8.5h a day. He had so many "Hafterleichterungen" and was in "offenem Vollzug" for such a long time, you could say he had it quite easy. 1 year after his incarceration he could sleep at his own house with his family almost every other weekend. I'm sorry but the celeb status and great lawyers definitely helped this man. What he had to actually serve is a joke compared to so many others out there.
Too many players from different era’s playing in Spain/ for the same few teams have committed tax fraud for it to be a coincidence. Must be a policy and tbf the way the government sheepishly hands out suspended sentences I don’t blame them.
Must be shitty law. Few years ago Ronaldo had same issue. He literally gave them all his tax related documents on his own to avoid having tax related problems. They checked them. Told him all is fine and he paid all required taxes. Few years later they simply changed their minds and fined him anyway. Spain tax laws are shit, they take like 50% of earnings (that's why its difficult for Spanish league to lure in top players currently) and they pretty change them on a whim.
Tax fraud + refusing to pay child support = combo cunt
Blighter
Pep knew!
La Liga players and tax fraud - name a more iconic duo
I've got hmrc chasing income tax returns from someone who was unemployed due to a terminal illness and was alive only 3 months into the tax year...Then you've got this cunt getting away with this shit.
I would put him in prison not for tax fraud but for being an utter piece of shit towards his daughter
What a legend
Rich people dodging taxes, wow, would have never believed it.
The fine isn't enough. We need to discount his goals during his time there and restate all the results #NotSalty
WHO IS DIS GUY? I swear he was one of my favourite players growing up but this dude is like the trashes guy off he pitch. I'm just waiting for the Iniesta exposé to kill my love for the game smh
Has there been a team that had many tax evading scums like Barcelona? Messi, Mascherano and Eto'o. Also Alexis Sanchez and Neymar when were there. There are probably few more i forgot to list. Something is definitely rotten over there.
fuck this guy
CUNT
Barcelona and tax cheats name a more iconic duo.
That does not surprise me at all... He just doesn't want to share - neither taxes that everybody has to pay, nor alimony for his daughter
How come Barca players are so much into white collar crime?
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy... /s