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Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for evading tax. The high profile case has been ongoing for a while and Hoeness admitted to evading around €27m in taxes.
The maximum sentence for tax evasion in Germany is 10 years. But as Hoeness had co-operated with the investigation, the prosecutors were only seeking a 5-1/2 year sentence.
The Munich court judge ruled that in spite of the 62-year-old Hoeness voluntarily disclosing his income, he had not paid taxes and therefore did not meet the requirement to avoid a prison sentence for coming clean.
Hoeness admitted to holding a secret Swiss bank account and thought that coming clean would mean the court would be lenient with its punishment.
The judge said, “The voluntary disclosure is not valid with the documents that were presented alone.” The judge also said that the confession contained a number of mistakes.
Hoeness had also failed to submit many other documents that were requested by tax inspectors on time.
It is learnt that Hoeness struggled to keep his composure as the verdict was delivered and also left the court without speaking a word to the assembled reporters.
Lawyers representing Hoeness revealed that they would be appealing to the Federal Court of Justice.
Hanns Feigen, one of Hoeness’ lawyers, said: “The high court will decide if his voluntary disclosure was valid, or partially valid or botched,”
“That’s the interesting point. The key point is the way a taxpayer is being treated – as if he hadn’t turned himself in.”
This case has been one of Germany’s biggest high-profile tax evasion cases due to which more than 26,000 German tax evaders opted for voluntary disclosure.
Hoeness has been at Bayern Munich in various capacities for 35 years and oversaw one of its most successful periods which saw the club’s earnings rise during his tenure.
