Messi, Ronaldo are among highest tax paying footballers

The world's highest-rated players pay taxes according to their salaries helping their nations' economies. In 2016-17, the Premier League contributed a total of £3.3 billion in tax to the Treasury.

Premier League players themselves paid £1.1 billion of this, according to a report from accountancy firm EY. In total, the Premier League contributed £7.6 billion to the UK economy in 2016-17.

While a player's wage, in the Premier League and Championship, will be levied with a 45% income tax charge, image rights are taxed at the 19% corporation tax rate, making it a far more lucrative mode of payment for the player.

While some players would be able to command enormous fees for their image rights and may have a more valuable brand than the club they play for, negotiating image rights is an increasingly standard practice among players with less name recognition too.

In Spain, the top tax rate is 52% and that was the reason why Ronaldo wanted a new contract with Real Madrid last season, now he is on a weekly salary of £288,000-after tax which means Real Madrid had to pay around £600,000-a-week to have Ronaldo in their squad.

Here's a list of top players who pays the big bucks -

Lionel Messi

He is the single biggest contributor to the Spanish treasury and even pays more than many big companies. Of his annual pay packet of £121m, £58m is understood to be taxed - just shy of 50 per cent. He has been revealed as Spain's biggest taxpayer for the past four years.

The Barcelona superstar paid a staggering £324million or approximately 3.8 thousand crores to the taxman in that time, his leaked contract showed. He also pockets additional bonuses, such as the £120m 'renewal fee' simply for signing on the dotted line and £69m 'loyalty bonus' each year for staying put at Barcelona. It is added that Messi's tax payments equal the average contributions of 120,000 Spanish citizens combined.

On top of that, the report adds Messi has to pay tax on other wealth such as image rights and other businesses.

Christiano Ronaldo

In November 2016 Ronaldo signed a financially improved contract extension with Real Madrid and a new deal will keep him at the club till 2021-22 season which means that he will have to pay £365,000 after-tax weekly and £21 million annually or 246 crores a year where his net worth is £361 million.

Paul Pogba

In 2016-17 the player earning the top wage was Manchester United's Paul Pogba, who earned £290,000 per week – or £15.08 million per year. A salary this high would garner an eye-watering tax bill of £7.077 million or approximately 83 crores – an effective tax rate of 47%. This is equivalent to the amount of France's 1,279 average earners' tax bills.

Sergio Aguero

Sergio Aguero is the second-highest player with weekly earnings of £220,000 and yearly earnings of £11.44m apart from various awarded bonuses within a year. He is known as the most gifted Premer League striker of the last 5 years with his exemplary pace and high goal. Aguero signed a five-year contract in August 2014, keeping him at Man City till 2019. The player gives an income tax of £5,600,960 annually which is approximately 65 crores. 

Harry Kane

He is the best striker in the premier league football Tottenham Hotspur and captains the England national team. In 2021, he will earn a base salary of £10,400,000, while carrying a cap hit of £10,400,000. The amount of tax and NIC he pays would be just under £4.9 million or 57 crores.