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Lionel Messi not serving a 21 month jail term in Spain for tax fraud


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Guest chopey

Poor Messi all he wants to do is earn a decent living for his family and not pay taxes to the state, every Monday I work goes straight to the taxman.

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Obviously the law wasn't made with Messi in mind, but the idea is that sending somebody to jail for a first offence can be a self-defeating purpose. You commit a fairly petty crime (as I said, violent crime is excluded from this), and you go to a place where you'll be surrounded by criminals, with a very big chance you won't get employment once you get out, which all means you'll be headed straight to a self-perpetuating cycle of crime. So we aim to short-circuit this vicious circle by giving a "first strike" to first-time criminals. A second chance, if you will. You get a criminal record, and your name will be on police databases all over, so it's not like you won't end with your ass in jail pretty soon if you do it again, and you'll get extra penalty for recidivism.

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I actually really like the spanish two years no prison law, makes a hell of a lot of sense. Is Messi's sentence about right for the crime or has it been pretty lenient though? Would your average Jose get more?

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I actually really like the spanish two years no prison law, makes a hell of a lot of sense. Is Messi's sentence about right for the crime or has it been pretty lenient though? Would your average Jose get more?

 

Par for the course. The taxman isn't actually interested in jailing people, they want to get paid. They were asking for 22 months in this instance.

 

The idea is that the threat of jail will make you cough up the cash (which Messi did). If you agree to pay and do it promptly, they will never ask for over 2 years.

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