MailOnline- 5 December 2016 Jose Mourinho tax evasion allegations Q&A: 'Football Leaks' claim lawyers invented expenses to lower his tax bill... so will he face prosecution?

• Group of European media outlets have accused Cristiano Ronaldo, Jose Mourinho and Mesut Ozil among others of financial impropriety 
• Mourinho was issued with a tax bill of £1.8million for the period 2010-2013 for unpaid Spanish tax on image rights earnings of just under £10m
• According to the latest allegations he was able to reduce that tax bill by filing what El Mundo refer to as 'fictitious' company expenses...
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  Day two of the investigation into high profile figures in football and their tax arrangements has focused on Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho.

   

  Sportsmail answers some more questions on the latest allegations.

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  What time period do the latest claims refer to?

   

  It's the period 2010 to 2013 when Mourinho managed Real Madrid in Spain. During that period he did not originally pay tax on his image rights earnings to the Spanish tax authorities. They opened an investigation into this in 2014 and on July 3, 2015 Mourinho was issued with a tax bill for €2.1million (£1.8m) for the period 2010-2013 for that unpaid tax on image rights earnings of just under €12m (£10m). According to the latest allegations he was able to reduce that tax bill by filing what El Mundo refer to as 'fictitious' company expenses.

   

  How much?

   

  El Mundo claims that Mourinho declared €1m (£840,000) of expenses for a company that had no employees and whose operating costs should have come closer to €100,000 (£84,000).

   

  What evidence does El Mundo claim to have to back this up?

   

  El Mundo refers to an email that it claims is from Mourinho's lawyers to his agents and that declares in quotes 'the news is excellent' announcing that they have been able to reduce the tax Mourinho must pay by €1m (£840,000).

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  How would El Mundo have seen emails from Mourinho's lawyers to his agents?

   

  Remember this is a Football Leaks operation. The whistleblower website has shared documents with Der Spiegel and the German weekly has in turn shared the information with 12 other media across Europe, El Mundo, among them.

   

  And how is it alleged that the tax bill has been reduced?

   

  Mourinho has a company in the British Virgin Islands which El Mundo refers to as Koper. El Mundo claims Mourinho's lawyers convinced Spanish tax authorities that this company had incurred costs of €1m (£840,000). The key is that, according to El Mundo, in previous emails Mourinho's lawyers had confirmed that company costs were 'non-existent'.

   

  So the claim is that his lawyers invented expenses to lower his tax bill?

   

  Yes. El Mundo claims Koper's operating costs in the tax years in question 2010 to 2013 were around €100,000 (£840,00), in their words: '10-times less than the amount declared'. Referring to other emails sent between Mourinho's lawyers in Spain and the company Multisports & Image Management (MIM) based in Ireland, El Mundo quotes email conversations in which the lawyers have it confirmed to them by MIM that Koper has no staff.

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  So what are the figures?

   

  El Mundo says that Mourinho's publicity earnings would have totalled almost €12m (£10m) in the period 2010-2013. It claims that by filing costs of €26,467 (£22,000) in 2010, €528,552 (£443,000) in 2011 and €456,395 (£382,000) in 2012 the Spanish tax authorities allowed the sum of €1,014,415m (£850,000) to be deducted from Mourinho's final tax bill from Spain.

   

  Is this front page news again as it was on Saturday?

   

  El Mundo which is the Spanish paper involved in the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) behind this investigation, always carries a quote on the front of its edition. Sunday's was: 'Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society', something said by 20th century American jurist Wendell Holmes. They give over part of their front page to the story and there are four pages inside.

   

  Is further action likely?

   

  As with the Cristiano Ronaldo case there is a world of difference between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion. El Mundo's revelations suggest an elaborate re-routing of income. The Virgin Islands-based Koper cedes Mourinho's image rights to two companies in Ireland where tax is paid at 12.5 per cent. Mourinho's advertising partners sign their agreements with the two companies in Ireland. The money then goes back to Koper in the Virgin Islands and on to a Swiss bank account and then to a trust fund in New Zealand in the name of Mourinho's wife and children. 

   

  The Spanish tax man successfully argued that it was still due a cut of the image rights earning for the period 2010 to 2013 and Mourinho settled the subsequent tax bill. What El Mundo alleges is that Mourinho's lawyers have reduced that tax bill by those 'fictitious' expenses. 

   

  It is now down to the Spanish tax authorities to decide if they will investigate further on the basis of the El Mundo allegations.{jcomments on}

   
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-3998844/Jose-Mourinho-tax-evasion-allegations-Q-lowdown-Spanish-reports-Manchester-United-manager-end-court.html 

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