The Colombian superstar is called before the Spanish courts from Monday. Accused of tax fraud valued at 14.5 million euros, she risks a sentence of eight years in prison and a fine of 23.8 million euros, requested by the prosecution.
Shakira, the singer with 80 million albums sold, has conquered the world with her oriental sway, her powerful vibrato and her Latin rhythms, but the Colombian “rockera” must now convince another audience: the judges. The international star must appear from Monday November 20, 2023 before a Barcelona court for tax fraud estimated at nearly 14.5 million euros.
Summoned at 10:00 a.m. (09:00 GMT), the 46-year-old Colombian artist will have to respond to the accusations of the prosecution, which requested a sentence of more than eight years in prison and a fine of 23.8 million euros. This trial is scheduled to last until December 14 with a total of nearly 120 witnesses.
Shakira rejects accusations, says ‘innocent’
The prosecution accuses Shakira of not having paid her income and property taxes in Spain in 2012, 2013 and 2014 even though she had lived, according to him, more than half the year in the country, the threshold at -beyond which a person must be considered a tax resident.
The interpreter of Waka Waka or Hips don’t liewho triumphed again Thursday evening at the Grammy Latinos in Seville, categorically rejects these accusations and says “absolutely certain of his innocence“.
According to the prosecution, the singer would have used a complex set-up of companies based in tax havens.with the intention of not paying taxes” in the country. The star’s lawyers refute these accusations and assure that, even if Shakira had started a relationship in 2011 with ex-FC Barcelona footballer Gerard Piqué, from whom she separated in 2022, she stopped traveling around the world during those years due to his career.
They claim that the singer only established herself permanently in Barcelona at the end of 2014, before transferring her tax residence from the Bahamas to Spain in 2015, just before the birth of their second child. Shakira”has scrupulously complied with all its tax obligations in the multiple territories where it has had professional activities“, argued his defenders in a writing, recalling that the star had already paid 17.2 million to the tax authorities in this case in order to regularize his situation.
This summer, the Spanish prosecutor’s office began another procedure against the singer, whom it accuses of another tax fraud in 2018, estimated at six million euros.
His life will be unpacked in the courtroom
The singer, who moved to Miami with her two children following her separation last year from Gerard Pique, could be excused by the court from attending all hearings. But whether she’s there or not, she risks seeing part of her life unraveled in the courtroom.
Indeed, in order to demonstrate its accusations, the Spanish tax authorities questioned its neighbors, checked its accounts on social networks, checked its expenses in hair salons in Barcelona or in the clinic where it was followed for its pregnancy and dissected those of his relatives.
Of the “unacceptable methods”according to Shakira’s lawyers, who also saw her name appear in the “Pandora Papers“, a vast journalistic investigation published at the end of 2021 and accusing several hundred personalities of having concealed assets in offshore companies, in particular for the purposes of tax evasion.