Why Is Spain Really Taking Lionel Messi to Tax Court?
By Jonathan Mahler Sep 27, 2013

So Spain has decided to haul Lionel Messi into court for tax evasion, which strikes me as completely insane on pretty much every level. You may remember the story from a few months back: The greatest soccer player in the world and his father were accused of setting up  a bunch of shell companies in Belize and Uruguay to avoid paying taxes on royalties and other licensing income.

Messi - who makes an estimated $41 million a year, about half from sponsors - reached a settlement with Spain’s tax authorities earlier this summer, agreeing to pay the amount he apparently owed, plus interest. The matter was settled, or so it seemed. Messi could go back to dazzling the world with his athleticism and creativity.
Only it turns out that Spain wasn’t quite done with Messi. His adopted country - Messi is Argentine but became a Spanish citizen in 2005 - is now considering pressing criminal charges against him.
Cracking down on tax-evading footballers has become something of a trend in Europe, where players and clubs have been known to launder money through “image-rights companies” often set up in tax havens. When you need money - and Europe needs money - go to the people who have it, or something like that. Over the summer, dozens of Italian soccer clubs were raided as part of an investigation into a tax-fraud conspiracy. A number of English Premier League clubs were forced last year to pay millions of pounds in back taxes. No one likes a tax cheat, and there’s little doubt that widespread tax fraud has helped eat away at the social safety net in Spain and elsewhere, depriving schools, hospitals and other institutions of badly needed funds. But Europe is not going to find the answers to its financial problems in the pockets of some professional soccer players and clubs. Messi’s defense, delivered by his father, seems credible enough to me. “He is a footballer and that’s it, ” Messi’s father Jorge said of his soccer-prodigy son. “If there was an error, it was by our financial adviser. He created the company. My mistake was to have trusted the adviser.” Even if Messi is legally responsible for the intricate tax dodge he is accused of having participated in, it’s pretty hard to believe that he knew much about it.
More to the point, Lionel Messi is probably Spain’s most valuable global asset. What could possibly motivate the Spanish government to want to tarnish his reputation, especially after he’s paid off his alleged debt? After four years of Great-Depression level unemployment, have anxiety and despair curdled into vindictiveness?
Here’s another explanation: Maybe this whole case has less to do with money than it does with history. Maybe it’s no coincidence that the target of the Spanish government’s weird wrath happens to play for FC Barcelona, which is, after all, "mes que un club." It's a symbol of Catalan nationalism - and a bitter, longtime rival of Spain’s establishment team, Real Madrid.
Too conspiratorial? Prove it, Spain. Release Cristiano Ronaldo’s tax return.

(Adapted form http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-27/why-is-spain-really-taking-lionel-messi-to-tax-court-.html)

Atenção: As questões de números 53 a 56 referem-se ao texto abaixo.

    Managing government has never been more challenging. Public sector leaders face increasing expectations from citizens, businesses, elected officials, and employees. Pressed to provide services and information more quickly and cost effectively than [ADVERB], they are often saddled with legacy information systems that fail to leverage current technology or provide an enterprise-wide view of government.
    To meet these challenges, Oracle introduces Oracle iGovernment, a platform for innovative, integrated, and intelligent operations that lets you tear down silos and link frontand back-office operations while reducing costs and increasing responsiveness. With Oracle iGovernment you can modernize your IT infrastructure, increase efficiency and transparency, and improve service delivery.
    Oracle is the world's largest business software company, with more than 345,000 customers. And only Oracle delivers a complete platform of database, middleware, and applications—all based on open standards—to transform your organization.
    Oracle has reinforced and extended its public sector offerings with the acquisition of Sun, the leading provider of open-standards based Solaris and Linux platforms, architect of the award-winning SPARC processor family, and a key founding member of the Java community. Oracle's Sun solutions for the public sector provide a comprehensive set of capabilities for mainframe rehosting and migration and enterprise consolidation, enhancing our complete, open, and integrated solutions that support Oracle's iGovernment vision. Sun's advanced systems, storage, and services are designed to give you the value you expect, the quality you need, and the expertise you require to fully modernize your IT infrastructure.