Spanish tax officials are not letting anything slide, especially when it comes to global celebrities.
The tax evasion trial of pop star Shakira is scheduled to start this November.
Now Carlo Ancelotti, coach of Real Madrid futbol club (for casual fans like me, that’s a popular, and very valuable, soccer team), will stand trial for tax fraud for allegedly failing to declare image rights earnings in 2014 to the Spanish tax office.
A Spanish judge said Ancelotti had “acknowledged” the actions which deprived the country’s treasury of 386,361 euros ($428,000), according to the French news agency AFP and reported by Dawn, Pakistan’s largest English-language newspaper.
Club income, but not image earnings: Spanish tax officials allege that Ancelotti declared his 2014 tax year earnings as Real coach, but not the money he made from his image rights or other related income.
“It is evident that there are sufficient indications to consider the deeds under investigation could constitute an alleged offence against the public treasury,” said the judge in her findings.
It’s not the first time Ancelotti has faced such charges. News reports note that a similar Spanish complaint about the coach’s tax filing in 2015 was dismissed. He filed that year as a tax resident of the United Kingdom.
It’s also not the first time that futbol/soccer stars have found themselves in trouble. Years ago, international futbol stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi found themselves tangling with tax officials.
Athlete tax troubles: And it’s definitely not surprising that athletes often face tax troubles. Their special circumstances, such as changing teams and tax jurisdictions and, here in the United States, dealing with jock taxes, make their tax lives especially complicated.
But I suspect that most folks, me included, don’t worry too much about the hassle that professional athletes face when they allegedly mess up their taxes. In most cases, they also have the income to pay for high-dollar tax advisers and attorneys to help them unravel their tax entanglements.
Tax Felon Friday: Although Ancelotti is just facing charges and is far from a possible conviction, this item is the second installment of the ol’ blog’s new end-of-week feature, Tax Felon Friday.
If that first post whetted your appetite for more tax crime posts, including those that were published long before I gave them a special designation, feel free to peruse the, what else, tax crimes category.
And if you’re more interested in sports and taxes, then enjoy the posts in that category.
You’ll find this post at the top of both of those categories right now, so just scroll down for more.
Advertisements
🌟 Search Amazon Business and Money Books 🌟
The text link above is an affiliate ad. If you click through and then buy a product, I receive a commission.
