Spain’s former King Juan Carlos I makes second payment in a bid to regularize his tax affairs
After paying more than €678,000 to the Spanish authorities in December, he has now handed over more than €4 million to cover undeclared payments in kind totaling €8 million
Spain’s emeritus king Juan Carlos I has made a second payment to the country’s Tax Agency in a bid to regularize his fiscal situation after he received undeclared income over a number of years. The former monarch, who abdicated from the throne in 2014 and has been mired by accusations of wrongdoing regarding his finances in recent years, has handed over more than €4 million to the tax authorities to cover up to €8 million he received in payments in kind, sources with knowledge of the situation have told EL PAÍS.
Amid the investigations into his financial affairs last year, Juan Carlos I – who is the father of the current king, Felipe VI – opted to leave Spain and has been living in the United Arab Emirates since the summer. In December 2020, he made a first payment to the Tax Agency of €678,393 to pay off a debt that corresponded to the tax years of 2016 to 2018 – after he abdicated the throne, he lost the full immunity from prosecution that he had enjoyed up until that point. When he made this payment, he was admitting that he had committed fraud, but by regularizing the outstanding amount before being informed of the opening of an official probe he avoided facing the courts for the offenses.
This voluntary declaration of €8 million relates to flights from a private jet company that he used and that were paid for until 2018 by a foundation called Zagatka, owned by his distant cousin Álvaro de Orleans, sources close to the case have told EL PAÍS. The use of these flights is considered to be a payment in kind and is subject to income tax (known as IRPF) in Spain.
The Zagatka foundation was created in Liechtenstein on October 1, 2003. Its main beneficiary is Orleans, a 73-year-old engineer and entrepreneur. According to the foundation’s statutes, it was created to help the then-king of Spain in recognition of his contribution to democracy in Spain. Juan Carlos I played a key role in the Transition, when Spanish society moved from the end of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco to a full democracy in the late 1970s. The second beneficiary of the foundation was a son of De Orleans, followed by Juan Carlos I and then Felipe VI, in the case of the death of the Orleans. In fifth place were Juan Carlos’s daughters, Elena and Cristina de Borbón.
The €678,393.72 is just the beginning, a drop in the bucket, of what's ahead for Juan Carlos.
