(Barcelona) A Spanish court announced Thursday that it had closed a second procedure for tax fraud opened against the global star Shakira, who has therefore finished with legal hassles in the country where she resided for a long time.
Following the request of the prosecution, announced on Wednesday, this court on the outskirts of Barcelona recognized that the Colombian artist had committed “irregularities” in her 2018 tax declaration, with a shortfall of around 6 million euros ($8.8 million) for the Spanish tax authorities.
But “irregularities are not enough for a (criminal) offense against the tax administration to be characterized”, estimated the magistrate responsible for the case, according to which the interpreter of Hips don’t lie did not have “the desire to evade taxes”.
This court announced in July that it had opened this procedure against the singer, suspected then of having used companies domiciled in tax havens to avoid paying all of her income and wealth tax in 2018.
In order to show her desire to regularize her situation, Shakira paid 6.6 million euros ($9.7 million) to the courts in August, a sum corresponding to the 6 million owed to the tax authorities, increased by late payment interest. and regularization fees.
“Defamation”
In a press release, Shakira’s counsel welcomed the fact that the Spanish courts had “put an end” to what they described as a “defamation campaign carried out against the singer by the tax administration”.
“Our client is satisfied that we are finally recognizing that she did not commit tax fraud, but her fight against the tax authorities does not stop there,” declared her lawyer, Pau Molins, quoted in the text.
Shakira still remains in the sights of the Spanish tax authorities for the year 2011, but this procedure is administrative.
The singer had already avoided a trial at the end of 2023 before the Barcelona court as part of the first prosecutions for tax fraud.
The court accused her, in this case, of not having paid her taxes in Spain in 2012, 2013 and 2014 even though she had lived in those years more than 183 days per year in the country, a threshold beyond which a person is considered a tax resident there. He had requested a prison sentence of eight years and two months and a fine of 23.8 million euros ($35 million) against him.
The singer for her part categorically denied these accusations, ensuring that, even if she had started a relationship in 2011 with ex-FC Barcelona player Gerard Pique, she had continued to move around the world in those years. , because of his career.
She claimed to have 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 her second child.
Compromising unpacking avoided
Summoned to court in November to stand trial, she finally admitted her guilt and sealed a last-minute agreement with the prosecution, thus avoiding a trial promising an unpacking of her private life by investigators who had questioned her neighbors or controlled his expenses in hair salons in Barcelona.
The singer of Waka Waka had been ordered, as part of this agreement, to pay a fine of more than 7.3 million euros ($10.8 million) corresponding to “50%” of the amount of the fraud. She had also already paid 17.45 million euros ($25.7 million) to the tax authorities to regularize her situation in this matter.
Shakira –– who saw her name appear in the “Pandora Papers”, a vast journalistic investigation accusing several hundred personalities of having concealed assets in extraterritorial companies – has found herself in the spotlight since 2022 due to her difficult separation with Gerard Piqué, which she recounts in the global success Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53.
She has since settled with her children in Miami.
Besides Shakira, many personalities have had problems with the Spanish tax authorities, such as footballers Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, who were also sentenced to fines of several million and prison sentences which they did not have to pay. purge.