fraud

The economic crisis and especially the recession starting in 2009 have contributed to the growing weight of the underground economy in Catalonia and in Spain, according to a study presented on Wednesday by the Spanish Ministry of Finance’s Union of Technicians (Gestha). This study is entitled ‘L’economia submergida passa factura. Avançament del frau a Espanya durant la crisi’ (Underground economy takes its toll. Growing fraud in Spain during the crisis) and is led by Jordi Sardà, a professor at Tarragona’s Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV). It reveals that according to the latest figures (from 2012) the underground economy has absorbed 24.6% of Catalonia’s GDP, hiding €47.36 billion. In 2009 the weight of illegal activity amounted to 22.3 %, meaning that between 2009 and 2012 some €4.6 billion were hidden.

Last week Lionel Messi and his father Jorge Horacio Messi were formally accused by the Spanish Public Prosecution Office of having evaded €4 million in taxes regarding his image rights between 2007 and 2009. The judge in charge of the case has decided to indict the FC Barcelona player and his father. She has asked them to come to the court with their lawyers on the 17th of September to be interrogated, in order to decide whether she will formally accuse them or not. Messi’s lawyers issued a press release in which they stated the player’s will to cooperate with the judicial process and added he will pay whatever he is told. However, they also insisted on Messi’s innocence, emphasising they “are sure” he has already honoured his fiscal obligations. In addition, the Argentinean player released a statement last week fully denying the accusations.

The FC Barcelona player denies having evaded taxes. “We have not committed an offence” and “we have always honoured our fiscal obligations” stated Lionel Messi in a note published on his Facebook account. On Wednesday, the Public Prosecution Office accused the Argentinean football player and his father Jorge Horacio Messi of not having paid €4 million to the Spanish Tax Agency in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The Prosecution Office believes they hid “important revenue” deriving from image rights and “simulated” signing over the image rights to societies based in fiscal havens such as Belize or Uruguay or with addresses in countries particularly permissive with such societies such as the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

After holding the second high-level meeting with top representatives from all the public powers involved in the fight against corruption and fraud in Catalonia, the Catalan President, Artur Mas, presented a document setting out a list of measures. The document takes into account suggestions and comments by all the attending public powers, but it is not a joint text issued by all the participants, Mas emphasised, as it is only signed by the President of the Catalan Government. An initial meeting was organised on the 6th of February to exchange views and gather ideas. The listed measures relate to transparency, public contracts, judicial capacities, political parties, control bodies and democratic regeneration.

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, organised a summit with top representatives from all the public powers involved in the fight against corruption and fraud to exchange ideas and come up with a set of measures. Political parties were not invited and some of them have protested. After the meeting, Mas explained that the attendees agreed to transform the Transparency Agreement from 2001 regarding the funding of political parties into a law in order to enforce it. Furthermore, the Catalan Government will allocate more resources to the judicial powers investigating the main corruption cases. The attendees agreed to compile the initiatives discussed in a document and meet again in two weeks’ time.

The President of the Catalan Government and leader of the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) is organising a summit to define new initiatives against corruption. The meeting will be held next week and will gather together the main representatives of the Catalan Parliament, the Supreme Court of Justice of Catalonia, the Catalan Ombudsman, the Catalan Court of Audit and the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia. Political parties are not invited, as the summit is thought to be “complementary” to Parliament’s actions. The Catalan President will ask the attendees to provide him with ideas so that he can channel them and put them on the table for a wider debate. In the last few months, many corruption scandals have affected politicians in Catalonia and the rest of Spain.