Lionel Messi is accused of evading taxes

Today, the prosecution of economic crimes of Barcelona, filed a complaint against the player of the Argentine soccer team and star of the FC Barcelona, Lionel Messi, and his father, Jorge Horacio Messi, accusing them of committing three offences against the public Treasury and for having allegedly evaded more than 4 million euros in income tax returns in the years of 2007, 2008 and 2009.

The complaint, which was signed by the Attorney Raquel Amado, was filed at the Instructional Court in Gavà (Barcelona), where is located the home of the front player.

“In order to evade taxation, he simulated the cession of his image  rights to  purely instrumental companies based in tax havens (Belize, Uruguay), and in addition, license contracts, agency services, were formalized,  between those companies and others domiciled in jurisdictions of convenience (United Kingdom, Switzerland)”, reads the imposed lawsuit against the Messi.

The public prosecutor  found during the investigation that “the initiative to defraud came from Jorge Messi,” the father and representative of the player, because in 2005, when FC Barcelona striker was still under age, he commissioned to a third party the creation of a first company, which then would be replaced by another, in order to evade taxes.

The prosecution detailed the amount of the income tax returns supposedly fraudulent and totaled an amount of 1′ 059.398,71 euros, corresponding to  the financial year of 2007, 1’572.183,38 euros in 2008 and 1’533.092,87 euros in 2009, which means that in total the soccer player has evaded altogether, 4’164.674,96 euros from  his image rights.

The law provides an imprisonment of two to six years and a fine of twice to six times  the amount of the fraudulent returns when the amount of the fraud exceeds the six hundred thousand euros, as the supposed case of the King of Argentine soccer player.