The judge blocks any attempt to regularize Zapatero's jewelry
Even if they had not been declared, the tax offense would have prescribed after five years
BarcelonaThe Zapatero family's jewelry is today the main focus of tension in Spanish politics. The former president of the government has just been charged in a separate piece of the one that Judge of the National Court José Luis Calama was already investigating. The immediate consequence, beyond being summoned to testify again, is that as soon as legal action has been initiated regarding his jewelry, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero can no longer regularize them. Article 305.4 of the Penal Code establishes that he could have done so before the investigating judge formally communicated the opening of proceedings.
valued at over 1.3 million eurosAlthough there are images circulating from twenty years ago of Zapatero's wife, Sonsoles Espinosa, wearing some of the necklaces or earrings that the Civil Guard has now seized, the problem may lie in proving since when they have possessed the most valuable ones: there are two necklaces that exceed 220,000 euros and several earrings, 70,000. If the former president can prove that he has had them for more than five years, even if he did not regularize them at the time, his tax liability would be extinguished: the crime prescribes precisely after five years. The judge is also investigating Zapatero for smuggling to determine if these jewels were illegally brought into the country.
The PP has long clung to cases of alleged corruption surrounding the PSOE, and this Saturday its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, precisely pointed in Zapatero's direction. "The crown jewel of Pedro Sánchez," he joked from Galicia, pledging to "do a total cleanup" if he ever reaches Moncloa. "P.S. is truly who controls the great sewer of Spanish politics," he insisted.
For its part, the PSOE is balancing its assessment of the judges' actions, but the party's spokesperson, Montse Mínguez, stressed on RNE the difference in the speed of justice when cases affect the PP and when they affect the PSOE: "A judicial calendar is being rolled out very quickly so that the government falls before the summer." From Terrassa, the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, added "respect" for the judicial action and also for the presumption of innocence, and once again saw a hidden hand behind the cases that affect them. "We are not blind or naive: they will not break us nor will they silence us," he concluded.
The express regularization of Juan Carlos I
Article 305.4 of the Penal Code also sets another limit for regularizing a tax offense. If the taxes on undeclared assets are paid before the Tax Administration notifies the commencement of proceedings, the debt is considered settled without consequences. This is precisely what the emeritus king, Juan Carlos I, did between 2021 and 2022, in a very controversial regularization, because the Tax Agency even made public that it was considering initiating an investigation against him. Before he did, Juan Carlos I paid almost 5 million euros (including default interest and surcharges for late payment) to settle the taxes derived from the gifts he allegedly received from a private jet company until 2018. Since the five years had not yet passed, the crime had not prescribed and, if he had not regularized the situation, Juan Carlos I could have ended up sitting on the defendant's bench for a tax offense.