Snofokk, the Spanish company owned by Rubén Doblas Gundersen, better known as El Rubius, has lost more than 258,900 euros over the past year, according to accounts filed by the company in the Trade Register to which El PAÍS had access. Last year the Madrid Supreme Court ruled that the YouTuber – who announced his move to Andorra in 2021 – reported his earnings in 2013 through that company and thus paid corporate tax instead of doing so through personal income tax, which is more onerous.
Founded in 2013 under the name “ELRUBIUS OMG” – name of Doblas’ main YouTube channel – the company posted a loss of 258,909.56 last year from a profit of 365,284.29 euros in 2021. Revenues of more than 1.2 million euros fell by more than 44%. The corporate purpose of the company includes all activities of a YouTuber: It includes, among other things, the production and distribution of audiovisual content, “the development, administration and orientation of artistic careers” and “the licensing, exploitation and administration”. of copyright and intellectual property rights.
Last year, the company’s short-term liability increased from more than 1.6 million euros to 32,000 euros. It reduced its debts to the administration by more than 110,000 euros to 13,278 euros. The most significant movement reflected in the accounts is the investment of more than 697,926 euros in Banco Sabadell promissory notes, which make up almost all of the company’s financial investments.
Conflict with the Ministry of Finance
In its ruling last October, the TSJ of Madrid assumed that it had invoiced income through the company in 2013, the year the company was founded, in order to pay the lower corporate tax rate – a technique used by athletes and artists than income tax, rather than reporting it as income from work, with much higher progressive rates.
Snofokk reported earning more than €230,000 that year and paid the YouTuber €98,760 to provide his services. The tax authority carried out an inspection and concluded that D. Nicolás – the pseudonym by which the judgment brought by eldiario.es referred to El Rubius – “constituted the essential element of the provision of the relevant service” and that the price of the transaction agreed between the company and itself was not fair market value.
More information
El Rubius is one of the largest revenue-generating Spanish content creators in the world. He collects more than 50 million subscribers on his YouTube channels. And as a streamer, he is one of the most viewed in the world on the Twitch platform. In January 2021, he announced that he was joining other Spanish youtubers and streamers and moving to Andorra, where the tax burden is lower: in the principality, income over 40,000 euros is taxed at a maximum rate of 10%. “Apparently [pagar menos impuestos] It’s a plus, but if it was just for that reason, I would have left many years ago,” Doblas said in a statement.
Due to the change of tax domicile and the introduction of the tax regime by the Treasury, the company’s operations are far from its original target and this is also reflected in its balance sheets: its assets have been reduced to less than half in the past year – from 3 .2 million euros to 1.3 million -, with a significant drop in cash. In 2021 he sold the company headquarters for 140,000 euros and in 2022 the company vehicle.
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