Cristiano Ronaldo Net Worth 2017 After Real Madrid Player Is Accused Of Evading Millions In Taxes

Spanish prosecutors have accused Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo of tax fraud on Tuesday, alleging that he evaded 14.7 million euros ($16.5 million) from 2011 to 2014. It's not like the soccer star can't afford to pay his taxes.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, he has a net worth of $400 million. He earns a salary of $45 million.

Ronaldo, 32, was the highest paid athlete in the world for the second successive year,Forbes Magazine reported. He earned about 83 million euros ($93 million) from salary, bonuses and endorsements last year.

Ronaldo has been accused of “four crimes against the public treasury” from 2011 to 2014. Madrid’s regional state prosecutor said that Ronaldo “took advantage of a business structure created in 2010 to hide from fiscal authorities income generated in Spain from image rights.” He attempted to amend his tax situation in Spain in 2014 by paying an extra 5.6 million euros ($6.3 million), but the tax office alleges he should have had to pay another 15 million euros ($16.8 million).

Read: What Celebrities Make The Most Money In 2017? Find Out Who Earns The Most Cash

In December 2016, news outlets, including El Mundo, received leaked documents which showed that the Portuguese player had avoided tax on income allegedly held in a shell company in the Virgin Islands to “create a screen in order to hide his total income from Spain’s Tax Office. Ronaldo denied the allegations, which came shortly after Spain’s supreme court upheld Lionel Messi’s 21-month suspended sentence for his conviction of tax fraud last year.

“As a consequence of the investigation which was opened in December 2015, the prosecutor has said that there is evidence of a crime, and for the tax agency there are one or three tax crimes,” said Carlos Cruzado, the president of the union of employees (GESTHA) to Cadena Ser. “It is not understood by the Tax Agency that the quantity which Cristiano paid in 2015 has served to sort out his debts.”

Prosecutors said they will take until the end of June to decide whether to charge Ronaldo. The tax office asked prosecutors to charge him with tax fraud and requested a minimum five-year jail term. Prosecutors said that if they charge Ronaldo and he was found guilty by a court, he would face a prison sentence of at least 15 months. It is unlikely he would be jailed as a first-time offender.

Another first-time offender, Messi, will likely have his 21-month prison term suspended as is common in Spain for first offenses for non-violent crimes carrying a sentence of fewer than two years. The Argentinian player and his father Jorge Horacio Messi were found guilty of using companies in Belize, Britain, Switzerland and Uruguay to evade taxes on 4.16 million euros ($4.7 million) of Messi’s earned income from his image rights in 2007-2009.

Other soccer players such as former Barcelona defender Javier Mascherano and Barcelona forward Neymar have also faced allegations of tax fraud.

Read: Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Lionel Messi Contracts: Who Makes More Money Per Season And In Endorsements?

“Quien debe no teme,” roughly translated to, “He who owes nothing has nothing to fear,” Ronaldo said to a journalist from Radio Television Portuguesa when asked about the investigation. “I am very relaxed about it,” Ronaldo said to El Chiringuito TV before the Champions League final. “I know that these things can be resolved with the best decisions. When you do things well you can go to bed feeling relaxed. And I sleep well always, always.”