– Rich must pay taxes too –
Messi’s family denied any wrongdoing after the footballer and his father were named as owners of a Panama company that had not previously been disclosed during a Spanish probe into their tax affairs.
“The Panama company to which they refer to is a totally inactive company that never had any funds or any open current accounts,” the Messi family said in a statement Monday.
Australia, France and the Netherlands have announced investigations into revelations contained in the papers. A judicial source said Spain had opened a money-laundering probe into the law firm.
“We need to make sure that not just ordinary citizens pay their taxes but also people who have a lot of money, who earn a lot of money, pay their taxes where they make that money and don’t hide the money,” visiting European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans told reporters Tuesday in the Polish capital Warsaw.
Panama has pledged to identify whether any crimes had been committed and any financial damages should be awarded.
But France’s Finance Minister Michel Sapin said his country would put Panama back on its list of countries that do not cooperate in efforts to track down tax dodgers following the revelations.
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