Shakira is accused by the Spanish courts of income and wealth tax fraud in 2018. The Colombian singer is already the subject of legal proceedings for tax fraud between 2012 and 2014.
Colombian star Shakira will be prosecuted again by the Spanish prosecutor’s office for defrauding the Spanish tax authorities, according to the daily El País. According to the Spanish newspaper, a second complaint has been filed against the singer, accused of income and wealth tax fraud in 2018.
Shakira is also to be tried from November 20 before the Barcelona Court of Appeal for a similar case, where the artist is accused of defrauding the tax authorities of 14.5 million euros between 2012 and 2014.
Claiming her innocence, Shakira, 45, had let it be known at the end of July that she refused to seal an agreement with the prosecution, saying she preferred the holding of a trial to this guilty plea procedure.
The prosecution had indicated a few days later that it would seek a sentence of more than eight years in prison and a fine of nearly 24 million euros against the interpreter of the hits Hips don’t lie, WakaWaka Or Loca.
Tax Haven and Pandora Papers
According to the prosecution, Shakira had been living in Spain since 2011, when her relationship with FC Barcelona footballer Gerard Pique was made public, but had maintained her tax residence in the Bahamas Islands, considered a tax haven, until 2015. The couple, who have two children, announced their separation in June, and the singer left Spain.
Shakira’s lawyers believe that until 2014, most of her income came from her international tours or her participation in the show The Voice in the United States and that she did not live more than six month per year in Spain, a requirement for establishing tax residency in the country.
The star also claimed that she had already paid 17.2 million euros to the Spanish tax authorities and therefore no longer had any debt towards him.
“Absolutely certain of her innocence” (…) Shakira does not accept an agreement “with the prosecution” and decides to continue “the procedure until the trial, indicated her advisers in a press release, affirming that the singer is “confident that justice will prove him right”.
Shakira’s name is also among those cited in the Pandora Papers, a vast investigation published at the end of 2021 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, accusing several hundred personalities of having concealed assets in offshore companies, in particular from tax evasion purposes.