The Bar Refaeli tax evasion saga is over: the Israeli international model will pay a fine and back taxes amounting to millions of shekels, and do nine months community service, while her mother Tzipi Refaeli will serve a 16-month prison sentence and pay a fine as well.
The sentences arise from a plea bargain designed to bring to an end the tax evasion affair relating to Bar Refaeli's income earned abroad in the years 2009-20012, and concealment of additional income and benefits that she received in Israel.
Subject to payment of taxes assessed by the civil tax inspector, the prosecution and the defendants agreed that Tzipi Refaeli will go to jail for sixteen months, and pay a NIS 2.5 million fine, and will also have a suspended sentence imposed on her. Bar Refaeli will serve a nine-month sentence through community service, and will also pay a NIS 2.5 million fine and have a suspended sentence imposed on her.
Bar Refaeli will withdraw the civil appeal filed in the Supreme Court against the tax assessments on the income in the period 2009-2010 and in the Tel Aviv District Court on the assessments for 2011-2012. She will have to pay the Tax Authority's demand in full in order to close the civil cases.
The affair began in 2017 with Bar Refaeli's arrest by the Israel Tax Authority on suspicion of having evaded taxes in the period 2009-2012.
The case centered on the question of Refaeli's place of residence. She claimed that in 2007 she had gone to live in the US to be close to her partner at the time, the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, and that she was therefore not liable to pay taxes in Israel. The Tax Authority claimed that she had defrauded the state concerning her place of residence, and that throughout the period in question she had in fact been living in Israel.
The case against Refaeli divided into a civil case and a criminal case. In the civil case, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled that she owed taxes in Israel amounting to NIS 8 million on her income in 2009-2010.
The more dramatic criminal case began in 2016 when Refaeli's mother Tzipi Refaeli was arrested on suspicion of having failed to report their complete income and of having misled the tax assessor, thus avoiding tax on income from abroad estimated in the tens of millions of shekels. The indictment against the pair attributed most of the responsibility for the tax swindle to the mother, hence she bore the heavier sentence.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 9, 2020
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