Former king pays 4.4 million euros to Spanish tax agency

MADRID (AP) — A law firm representing Juan Carlos I says that the former Spanish monarch has paid close to 4.4 million euros ($5.33 million) to the country's tax authorities in his latest attempt to regularize past undeclared income.

The 83-year-old former king, who has been living abroad for more than half a year after media revealed fresh allegations of financial misdoings, already filed for settlement for another tax debt in December for covert donations made to him between 2016 and 2018. That resulted in the payment of more than 678,000 euros including interest and a fine.

Juan Carlos' lawyer, Javier Sánchez-Junco, said in a statement Friday that the latest tax debt relates to the payments that a private foundation, Zagatka, made on behalf of the former king for “several travel expenses and other services."

The Liechtenstein-based foundation is owned by Álvaro de Orleans, a businessman and distant cousin of Juan Carlos who has publicly admitted having funded some of the former monarch's private expenses. Payments-in-kind are subject to taxes under Spanish law.

Leading Spanish newspaper El País and online news website El Español, which first reported the new tax settlement, said that the foundation paid for flights with a private jet company for more than a decade up to 2018.

The lawyer's statement said that the payment of overdue taxes plus interests and “surcharges” was voluntary and that tax authorities had not asked for it. The former monarch's tax obligations “have been regularized," it said. Under Spanish law, confessing to undeclared income and paying the outstanding taxes allows offenders to avoid being charged with a crime.

The former king is the target of official investigations in Spain and Switzerland for possible financial wrongdoing. One of them involves possible payments over a...