In a statement, El Rubius explains his position and charges against those who have criticized him.
El Rubius has spoken out about his move to Andorra in an extensive statement after several weeks of media silence.
Below is the full letter. Below the original source.
About the Andorra controversy. I only ask that, if you are interested, you read it to the end.
Initially I was not going to speak out on this issue. I was planning to keep quiet and go on living my life. Many people close to me have also advised me to remain silent and wait for the tide to calm down a bit. Others have advised me to give an official response, hiring a communications consultant and sending it to the media. But seeing how far this has come, I have decided to write and publish this on my own. In the end, what is being talked about is my life, so I prefer to address it myself. I would have loved to make a video but right now it’s impossible as I don’t have my work computer or camera at my disposal. Besides, I have felt the need to write a response based on reflection and calm, and talking about it with my closest people.
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The only thing I ask of you is that you read this letter to the end, and that you do not remain on the mere surface reading only those flashy headlines that the media will bring out afterwards.
A few days ago I announced to my audience my decision to move to Andorra. Normally I do not usually comment many things about my personal life; my work is already a partially open window to my life, and therefore I try to preserve my privacy and own my intimacy, but that day I was happy and excited, and when I had been live for nine hours I said to myself: “Now is the time to tell it”.
In short, I said the following: “Many of you already know where I’m going. Almost all my friends live there nowadays and in Madrid there are few things to keep me there”. Mind you; if it were just to earn more money, I would have moved there many years ago.” It is true that in Madrid I have never felt completely comfortable. I have told you several times: I am a person who hardly leaves the house and who lives with the blinds down all day, for fear that someone will recognize me. And I’m not saying this to try to be pitiful or anything like that, I’m used to living happily in the isolation of my room. But I’ve been a youtuber for five moves now and I can never rest easy thinking that there’s someone out there waiting for me or watching me. There are things as simple as going downstairs to buy bread or going for a walk that, believe it or not, I find it hard to do without the help of someone close to me.
As you may know, the words “Andorra” and “Rubius” have been trending topic for several days. For more than a week, opinions about my decision to move to another country have been pouring in relentlessly. First it started with my audience. My viewers were excited that I was moving, and a large part of them supported my decision. After a few hours, an online newspaper launched a news item with the headline “Rubius moves to Andorra to pay less taxes”. That first exclusive in an online media was the starting signal for the bombardment of articles, reports and columns that appeared (and continue to appear): “Rubius announces he is moving to Andorra: I would have left many years ago”, “How to avoid evasions like Rubius”, “The Rubius scandal” and many others that you may have seen.
The common denominator of these? Taking out of context what I said, looking for the easy click and of course, the lack of contrast and truthful sources.
From here, the matter began to escalate and all this storm of insults, infamy and incitement to hatred about me was unleashed. To the point of hanging political labels on me, arguing about whether or not I am a patriot, politicians using me for their agenda, others linking me to extreme ideologies. People taking clips of me from years ago completely out of context. People and media drawing conclusions about how much money I make per year (pulling their data from a website called Socialblade, which most know is not a reliable source of data and as a general rule makes estimates of what a “clean” US channel makes and suitable for all advertisers, but that’s a separate issue).
What I am seeing these days in the conventional media and in social networks only shows how rotten the climate of debate is in Spain. In the RRSS anyone unabashedly opines based on a simple 128-character headline, or based on the first result they have obtained in their Google search without a shred of critical thinking, deepening or contrast.
I have seen a lot of rancor accumulated against these new professions born out of the Internet. I have seen many people wishing to have the opportunity to declare me the Public Enemy Number 1 of this country and to be able to associate, at all costs, my image to that of a criminal. Because, deep down, what eats away at most of the traditional media is that a guy from his room has more repercussion than any of their broadcasts for which they need to have 30-40 people working and use film sets in which they have invested hundreds of thousands of euros. It eats at them that year after year, little by little, advertising investment is shifting from conventional television to the Internet. And this has been going on for years, many of you will know that this is not the first time I talk about this subject. But it is starting to smell.
And now let’s talk about taxes. Many people talk as if I had not paid taxes in my life, as if I had not done anything for my country (better said, for one of my two countries), as if I were a criminal. I’ve been a Youtuber for these 10 years paying almost half of what I’ve earned in taxes. 10 years. And I am very happy to have paid them. What bothers me is that, even though I’ve been doing things right and legally since day one, as, without a doubt, they should be done, the IRS has treated me as if I were a “criminal”. Since that first day, I have been subjected to tax inspections, notifications have been issued to the rest of the European and U.S. Treasury to see if I had “hidden current accounts”, I have been penalized for not responding to requests that never arrived, and a long etcetera.
And as if the above were not enough, a prominent Treasury technician, perfect connoisseur of all these actions by the Treasury, a public servant from whom we can expect the utmost respect for the citizens of this country, has spoken these days in the media stating, among other things, that “El Rubius has shown without concealment or complexes a tremendous lack of solidarity”.
I am fortunate because these practices are consubstantial to the way the Treasury treats thousands and thousands of self-employed, thousands and thousands of times smaller, and therefore more defenseless than me. Why is this not talked about in the media?
These days I have had enough of reading statements by high State officials (who have taken advantage of this controversy to make “fiscal pedagogy” in the media) in which they insinuate that I am likely to do scams in the future by moving to Andorra as it seems that other people did in the past; they state that it is more than possible that I pretend to live in Andorra while in reality I live in Spain enjoying the sun and public services, they even state that “they will be waiting for me in 5 years”. I quote again the outstanding technician of the Treasury: (…) “what El Rubius has announced to be legal will depend on the days he actually resides in Andorra (where the youtuber would have to live more than half a year). Something that the AEAT monitors and inspects, since those who pretend a transfer of domicile to pay less taxes could incur in a tax crime”. The same as always, the same as from day one, I am considered guilty until I can prove otherwise.
Others, thanks to the ceremony of confusion that has been set up at my expense, think that what I am doing is illegal and that I am committing tax fraud. Since when is moving to another country illegal? If I had gone to live in Germany, Norway or Japan, no one would have said anything at all. Some consider my decision to move to Andorra “selfish” or “unethical”. But it is no less true that most of my friends and colleagues are there and that there, from what they tell me, I can go out in the street in peace, there is security and I can be in a quiet and safe cultural environment, which after all is what I am looking for.
But rational criticism is one thing and treating me like a criminal and saying all the barbarities I have had to listen to from many journalists (from whom a minimum of professionalism and rigor is to be expected) who go on television to say that I “rob” the Spanish people. That writer who talks about “the regression of Spain” and then gives me a very civilized “fucking brat” or that famous former basketball player who shouts insults like “bastard” and “fuck off” in response to the interviewer who in turn claims (yet another defamation) that I have said that “Spain steals from me”. Not to mention the Vice President of the Government who publicly points his finger at me by retweeting the insults of the aforementioned former athlete) and another long etcetera.
In a publicly funded television we have heard that “all tax evading youtubers should be beheaded in the public square”. Apparently, it is considered normal and acceptable to utter such an outrage on public television. In a current affairs program of the same media, they showed images of me alternating them with those of a person who has been sentenced to prison for several crimes. Seriously, is this the level of a public debate worthy of a civilized country? Is this how we are going to fight hate speeches? Is making me the scapegoat and pouring all that hate on me going to contribute to improve the underlying problems in Spain?
The tax laws were not prepared for this new wave of online creators. And they still aren’t. They have not updated their catalog of “professions” since 1990. I hear people say, “close the internet connections between Spain and Andorra” or things like “with our income we should be taxed here”. I remind you that most of my income from YouTube comes from outside Spain, more than three quarters from countries like Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and the United States.
I do not want to set a bad example to the younger people who follow me, making them think that there is no need to pay taxes as has also been said. On the contrary, paying taxes is to contribute with your contribution to the progress and prosperity of the country where you live. But this has to be a balanced relationship between the State and the citizen. And if that premise is not fulfilled, it is completely legitimate for the citizen, in the full use of his freedom as a human being, to make the decisions he considers appropriate if they are within the law and not to receive the treatment I have received during the last few days.
In short, and with this I will say goodbye and not talk about this matter again, being a developed and civilized country is not only about being more or less rich and I learned this thanks to the years of childhood and adolescence that I lived in my other country, Norway. From this culture I have also learned one of the most important values for me: honesty and transparency. That is why I can only feel anger and helplessness when I read this other interview:
[There is one thing that especially surprises the inspector of the Tax Agency with whom we have spoken: “These ‘youtubers’ do not even dissimulate, they tell that they go to Andorra and directly recognize that they do it because they want to pay less taxes,” another active inspector of the Tax Agency tells us. “Other famous people who have been caught used to argue that they went to Andorra because they have business at the international level or because they need to train at altitude, in the case of athletes. But these guys clearly say that in Spain they live perfectly well and that if they go to Andorra it is to pay less taxes. That is asking loudly to be investigated]].
Senior state officials publicly show their surprise at the transparency and lack of roguery. To behave in an honest and transparent manner is “asking loudly to be investigated” (even more so when I have been under investigation since day one?). The high officials of the State are “astonished” that a citizen does not “dissimulate” and does not continue with the legacy of one of the oldest traditions of the Spanish culture, “you do what you want but don’t let it be noticed and nobody finds out”.
My decision to move, as everything in life, has many nuances and contrasts, it is not a flat decision, but the result of a long reflection and something inalienable, my own freedom if I exercise it in compliance with the law.
And that’s all, see you soon online.
PS: Thanks to all the media and people, although there have been minorities, who have been informed about this issue and have debated it in a respectful and rational way.
Sobre la polémica de Andorra:https://t.co/qdwesi2FjO
Solo pido que, si os interesa, lo leáis hasta el final.
— elrubius (@Rubiu5) January 29, 2021
Original: https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srimvg