{"id":30122,"date":"2019-01-22T12:23:36","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T12:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30122"},"modified":"2019-01-22T12:23:36","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T12:23:36","slug":"footballer-cristiano-ronaldo-fined-21m-in-tax-evasion-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30122","title":{"rendered":"Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo fined $21m in tax evasion case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a> has pleaded guilty to tax evasion, accepting a\u00a0fine worth 18.8 million euros ($21.4m)<\/span>\u00a0and a suspended 23-month jail term after a pre-agreed deal<\/a> with Spanish tax authorities l<\/span>ast year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old Portuguese captain appeared in a court in the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Tuesday, over\u00a0accusations of using shell companies outside Spain<\/a> to hide income made from image rights.<\/p>\n

The five-time world footballer of the year is unlikely to serve a jail term under the deal because Spanish law states that a sentence of under two years for a first offence can be served on probation.<\/p>\n

Ronaldo, who plays for Italian club giant Juventus, came out of the courtroom smiling, pausing to sign autographs before leaving in a black van.<\/span><\/p>\n

The charges against the striker stem from his days at Spanish league side Real Madrid, whom he played for from 2009-2018.<\/p>\n

In 2017, a state prosecutor accused Ronaldo of four counts of tax fraud between 2011-2014 worth 14.7 million euros ($16.7m)\u00a0<\/span><\/span>via a shell company based in the British Virgin Islands and another in Ireland, known for low corporate tax rates.<\/p>\n

In addition, prosecutors said Ronaldo declared only 11.5 million euros ($13.6m) of Spain-related income from 2011 to 2014, during which time his actual earnings were close to 43 million euros ($50.8m).<\/p>\n

They also accused the star footballer of “voluntarily” refusing to include 28.4 million euros ($33.6m) in income linked to the sale of his image rights for the 2015 to 2020 period to a Spanish company.<\/p>\n

Ronaldo had previously denied the charges<\/a> through his agents.<\/p>\n

After reaching the deal, he paid a fine<\/a> of 5.7 million euros ($6.5m), plus interest of about one million euros, in July 2018, the prosecutor’s office said last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ronaldo, who is also facing rape allegations<\/a> by a former model in the United States<\/a>, is the latest football<\/a> star to fall foul of tax evasion in Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Barcelona’s Lionel Messi was handed<\/a> a 21-month prison sentence in 2017 on similar charges, but Spanish law allowed him to exchange it for a fine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has pleaded guilty to tax evasion, accepting a\u00a0fine worth 18.8 million euros ($21.4m)\u00a0and a suspended 23-month jail term after a pre-agreed deal with Spanish tax authorities last year.\u00a0 The 33-year-old Portuguese captain appeared in a court in the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Tuesday, over\u00a0accusations of using shell companies outside Spain to hide…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}