David Beckham is one of the richest footballers of all time - and he's got plenty to show for it. The former England player, 49, lives a reality that is beyond many people's wildest dreams. With an eye-watering global property portfolio and an impressive business empire, Beckham certainly knows how to splash his cash.
But according to investigative author Tom Bower, he is clued up on how to save it too. In the writer's explosive new book, The House of Beckham: Money, Sex and Power , he claims the "money-obsessed" footballer routinely sought advice to legally minimise paying UK tax during the peak of his career. Upon his famous move to Real Madrid in 2003, Bower alleges he found opportunities to "avoid taxes".
The author claims: "Legally avoiding British taxes appealed to Beckham. As a non-dom in Spain, he was not paying British taxes on income earned outside Britain. And he was not paying National Insurance.
The genius of it was that no one in Britain realised that Beckham had become a tax exile. Instead, the public believed that he was a global success who paid his taxes in Britain." A spokeswoman for Beckham told Bower that he was at the time taxed fully on all his income earned in Spain and his income earned elsewhere in the relevant jurisdictions.
A source added that the Beckhams' "tax affairs are of course fully in order and have been duly filed, audited and approved by HMRC." Here, the Mirror takes a look at David's luxurious lifestyle, including his four beautiful prop.
