Tennis
Noah, Forget defend tax haven
2012-06-20 08:06
Yannick Noah (Gallo Images)
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Paris - Former French Open winner Yannick Noah and fellow Davis Cup winner Guy Forget appeared on Tuesday before the French Senate as part of a probe into tax evasion and defended their turn to tax havens.
"In tennis, one has a short career," said Forget, who has helped France win the Davis Cup in 1991 and 1996.
"A decade in which players try to optimise their income," the 47-year-old said. "We therefore tried to find places which were more favourable: Florida, Monaco, Switzerland to maximise our earnings and avoid double taxation."
The 52-year-old Noah, the last French player to win Roland Garros in 1983, went before the French constitutional court last September to protest at a ruling ordering him to pay one million euros in backtaxes.
Noah, now a popular singer in France, said he was now based in France after briefly living in Switzerland as a tax exile.
"Today I earn my money from the French public and pay my taxes in France," he said.