Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) striker Neymar obtained habeas corpus in a Brazilian court thanks to which he cannot be “prosecuted or detained” for tax evasion in his country, within the framework of two tax actions, as reported by his advisor.
The Regional Federal Court of the 3rd Region of Brazil determined the suspension of an “investigative criminal procedure” in which the Prosecutor’s Office proposed an agreement to avoid putting him in the dock.
However, the court considered that there is not enough evidence for the Public Ministry to offer a agreement.
“It would be markedly authoritarian to threaten with Criminal Law someone who exercises his basic constitutional right to pay everything when it is due, but only when it is due”, alleged the footballer’s defense in a note, represented by the law firm Davi Tangerino Advogados.
This case is not related to the trial that the star of the Brazilian team will face in Spain next October, a month before the Qatar World Cup begins, due to alleged irregularities in his signing for Barce canvas in 2013.
In the Brazilian case, Neymar is accused of tax evasion for not declaring correctly and, therefore, not paying the corresponding taxes referring to some payments that he and his family received from Barcelona between 2011 and 2013, when he was still a Santos player.
The Brazilian Treasury imposed a fine of 188 million reais (today about $36 million dollars) that the footballer managed to reduce considerably through a series of appeals in judicial instances.
In May 2020, he also obtained an injunction that allowed him to suspend payment of the fine until the case was judged.
Neymar’s defense alleges that much of the money demanded by the Brazilian authorities was paid in Spain, while he was defending the colors of Barcelona , through the payment of tax These in that country, whose values should be subtracted from the fine.
After the habeas corpus, their lawyers insisted that there is not the “minimum certainty about the existence of a criminal act”, nor “the possibility that the Federal Public Ministry sought a conviction” or had an “interest in acting.”
“These conditions must be present when an agreement of non-prosecution is offered, since the agreement is an alternative to filing a complaint”, argued Neymar’s lawyers, a thesis accepted by the Brazilian Justice.
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