International BP Madrid Holdings: Spanish PM publishes tax

(Reuters) - Spain's prime minister published his tax returns on Saturday in a bid to quell reports he and other conservative politicians received secret cash payments but the opposition said many questions remain unanswered. The government's website posted tax authority documents detailing Mariano Rajoy's income and tax payments from the past ten years. His ruling People's Party (PP) also revealed four years of financial accounts on Friday, in another attempt to put the matter to rest. The scandal, centered on ledgers supposedly made by a former party treasurer, have cut support for the PP to the lowest level on record and pushed up borrowing costs just as it seemed Spain was getting to grips with a financial crisis that had raised questions about the future of the euro zone. Former PP treasurer Luis Barcenas has described as fake handwritten ledger entries published on January 31 by El Pais newspaper purporting to show payments funded by construction firms made to PP leaders including Rajoy. Rajoy has said the payments were not made and that the party is organizing an external audit into the affair. The opposition Socialists said the published accounts of Rajoy and the PP did nothing to explain the Barcenas papers. Socialist spokeswoman Soraya Rodriguez said Spaniards wanted more than Rajoy's tax records. "Spaniards are fed up of waiting for answers that never come," she told journalists in Valladolid on Saturday. Cayo Lara of the United Left party said the publication of the accounts was meaningless as members of parliament have to declare their assets in any case. The tax returns do not cover the first half of the period of entries in the ledgers published by El Pais, which run from 1990 to 2009. In the last year of detailed returns published, for 2011, Rajoy earned more 400,000 euros before tax. He paid 870,292 euros in tax over the period covered by the published accounts.

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