According to a report in El País, former king Juan Carlos is seeking to "regularise" the tax situation regarding half a million euros of so-called "opaque funds" he allegedly used between 2016 and 2018, a period when he was no longer subject to inviolability, having abdicated in 2014.
These funds apparently came from a friend of the ex-king, a Mexican businessman, Allen Sanginés-Krause. In at least two of the three years, El País suggests, the sum of the funds spent without being declared to the Tax Agency would constitute a tax offence, as the amounts exceeded 120,000 euros.
This regularisation is not related to assets abroad but to the use of bank cards with opaque funds by Juan Carlos and "some of his relatives". Voluntary regularisation can be submitted at any time before the Tax Agency opens an investigation or a judge issues a summons to testify as being under investigation for alleged tax fraud or money laundering.
The former king, who left Spain in August and has been in the United Arab Emirates ever since as the guest of Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, is also said to be wanting to return to Spain for Christmas. The Royal Household, it is understood, is reluctant to agree to this.