Neymar’s Paris joy has been somewhat cut short after an appeals court in Brazil fined him 3.8 million Brazilian reales ($1.19m) in his long-running tax evasion case.
The amount of the fine corresponds to two percent of the value that the Brazil Tax Office intends to get from Neymar for tax evasion and fines totalling 192.7m Brazilian reales ($62.2m).
According to judicial sources in the South American country, the judge ruled that Neymar acted in “bad faith” regarding his attempts to evade taxes.
Alongside the Brazil star, his father, Neymar Sr., as well as three companies affiliated with the family also got fined.
The ruling, delivered in a regional federal tribunal in Brazil, comes after the player’s assets of $62.2m had been seized to guarantee the payment of the taxes owed.
Two years ago, Neymar was accused by the tax office of not paying the full amount of taxes between 2011 and 2013, and to have used family companies to considerably reduce the amount paid in taxes.
He was also accused of failing to disclose the full amount of his bonus after his move from Brazil club Santos to Barcelona in 2013.
Brazil’s Tax Office posits that the attacker and his family created several companies so as to receive part of his salaries and his image rights, with the aim of not paying personal tax (27.5 percent) which is superior to corporate entities, which can vary from 15 to 25 percent, ESPN writes.
Magistrate Carlos Muta considered in his ruling that Neymar’s conduct in the process “characterises litigation of bad faith and a detrimental act to the dignity of Justice” because of the clear intention of the capacity of his defense to extend the case.
The magistrate held that the former Barcelona, who recently became the world’s most expensive player after his €220m switch to Paris Saint-Germain, only wants to “obstruct the continuity of the process” in a bid to evade justice.
