The Premier League and the UK income tax rate…

Cristiano Ronaldo’s well publicized move from Manchester United to Real Madrid in the summer understandably received a lot of publicity. A world record football transfer fee of £80m is bound to catch the attention.

Ronaldo’s first year remuneration from Real Madrid is reported to be in the region of £11m. Students sitting the 2009 exams should be well aware that the 40% tax rate for the 2008/09 tax years applies to taxable income above £34,800. An individual in the UK with annual earnings of £11m would exceed the 40% threshold in just 2 days!

There were no doubt many factors that persuaded Ronaldo to move to Spain to play for Real Madrid. From a tax point of view though, Spain has favorable tax legislation that enables foreign players to pay tax in the region of 23%. When you compare this figure with the 40% top rate in the UK (and the upcoming 50% tax rate which is not examinable in the December exams) and apply the difference to the amounts of remuneration that Ronaldo is earning then the tax bill  would be significantly lower in Spain than in the UK. Approximate figures show a difference in tax next year when the 50% rate is in place of nearly £3m per year. This adds up to a significant amount when looked at over his contract period of 6 years.

Of course the football purists amongst us would argue that it’s the football team and supporters that are important rather than the tax bill but then again I can’t be sure about this until somebody offers me £11m a year to live in the sun in Spain!