Jorge Lorenzo wins his battle with the Spanish taxman: “The end of a nightmare. They also hunted me during the races” – Sport

“It’s a nightmare. But no one will give me back the sleepless nights, nor the peace I needed before hitting the track”. Jorge Lorenzo, the 5-times world champion driver from Mallorca, says he has just won his very personal battle with the Spanish taxman who – he writes today in a note – “ended up affecting my professional life: in the last years of my career the the Catalan court tried to destroy me from an emotional point of view, something that my opponents on the track have never succeeded in”. According to the Spanish state, the pilot would have had to pay 46 million euros: 35 million for taxes evaded between 2013 and 2015, the remaining 11 for 2016 alone. According to the Hacienda Española, number 99’s residence in Lugano was fictitious, an excuse precisely to avoid the payments due: “They interrogated hundreds of people, and while they were looking for information they discredited me in front of the people, making me pass for a fraud. Despite the fact that the Swiss authorities had explained several times that my situation was perfectly legal”.

Investigators also intervened during the 4 GPs held in Spain in 2016. “They sent staff to the paddock to force me to sign documents. They even attacked and blocked me before the start of a race.” It has been 5 and a half years during which the pilot swears he has “suffered a lot”. In that period Jorge won a MotoGP world title, during that stormy 2015 marked by the unfortunate “contact” in Sepang between Valentino and Marquez. Lorenzo, who retired from motorcycle racing in 2019, explains that he chose Lugano a long time ago because “it was a place where I could feel comfortable, when there weren’t any races: just one hour from Milan , 60 kilometers from the Yamaha facilities where I could train. And of course, also because of an easier tax regime. But I believe it is right to pay taxes in the country where one lives”. The Central Economic Administrative Court eventually agreed with him. “They were seasons of witch hunts, they were only looking for a cabeza de Turco (a scapegoat, ed): now who will repay me for the damage I have suffered? No compensation for the injury, no apology: public or private.”