Israel model fined, mother jailed for tax evasion

The Israeli model Bar Refaeli has been ordered to complete nine months of community service while her mother will be jailed as part of a plea deal to settle a tax evasion case.

Her mother and former model, Tzipi Refaeli, who works as Bar’s agent, will serve a 16-month prison sentence. The two will also have to pay $1.5 million in fines in addition to repaying taxes owed to the state.

Prosecutors said that Bar and her mother hid tens of millions of shekels in earnings from tax authorities.

The case dates back to 2016, when Tzipi was arrested on suspicion of having failed to report income and of having misled the tax assessor, thus avoiding tax on income from abroad estimated at tens of millions of shekels, Globes reported.

READ: Israel ‘blackmailing’ Palestinians by withholding tax revenues 

Her lawyers have consistently argued that she was unaware of arrangements made to avoid tax and said the plea agreement further reinforces that claim.

Last year, she appealed to the High Court of Justice against a lower court decision that ordered her to pay taxes on eight million shekels ($2.4 million) for earnings abroad in the years 2009-2010.

She claimed that her past relationship with Hollywood movie star Leonardo DiCaprio was tight enough to be considered a family unit, making her home base in the US rather than Israel.

However, the state argued that she was actually resident in Tel Aviv during much of this time, in apartments rented under the names of her relatives.

Refaeli’s lawyers said in a statement that “the plea bargain makes it clear once and for all that Bar Refaeli did not avoid paying tax on purpose. There’s no dispute that in the relevant periods Bar was in her early twenties, working as an international model and wasn’t involved in financial affairs.”

“Today she takes full responsibility for the mistakes made and will pay the price for them. She is sorry that her beloved family had to go through such a difficult period and feels pain at the price her mother will pay.”

READ: PA seeking end of coordination while Israel refuses tax delivery