Emilio Botin´s family already paid 200 million euros to the Spanish IRS to deal with the money left in Switzerland by the father of Santander´s Bank chairman during the Civil War.
Spain's national court announced Thursday it has opened a tax fraud investigation into the head of banking giant Santander, Emilio Botin, and his family.
The probe follows France's delivery to Spanish authorities of the lists of clients of the HSBC bank in Switzerland. It targets Botin, his five children, including his daughter Patricia Botin who is head of Santander's British affiliate, as well his brother Jaime Botin and his five children.
The court said the fraud could involve "more than 120,000 euros (175,000 dollars)
But nowadays, there´s such a volume of documents related to the case that the Spanish IRS is unable to review them before time expires to officially pursue any tax infringement.
The only way the IRS has been able to buy some time is by prosecuting Botin´s family. Is embarrassing that Botin´s family, one of the most well known bankers in the world, have not been loyal abour regularizing their inheritance, but is even more shameless that the Spanish IRS started their prosecution on the eve of Santander´s shareholders meeting.
