Spanish judge orders Shakira to face trial for $14.7M tax fraud as pop star slams 'baseless case'
BARCELONA, SPAIN: A Spanish judge has ordered pop icon, Shakira, to stand on a trail for tax fraud at a date, yet to be determined. On September 19, a Barcelona Judge ordered the singer to stand trial for six tax crimes, according to a court ruling made public on Tuesday, September 27.
The 45-year-old Colombian music superstar is accused of defrauding the Spanish tax office of 14.5 million euros ($14.7 million) on income earned between the period of 2012 and 2014.
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The prosecutors said the pop star, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll pretended to live abroad and used an offshore corporate structure to avoid meeting her tax obligation despite moving to Barcelona after she began a love relationship with former boyfriend Gerard Pique.
Prosecutors said in July that they are seeking a prison sentence of more than eight years and a hefty fine if she is found guilty of tax evasion. In July, the ‘Hips don’t lie singer confirmed that she had turned down an out-of-court deal after she was charged with defrauding the Spanish treasury. She was charged with six separate counts of defrauding the Spanish treasury over the three-year period between 2012 and 2014.
The indictment by the prosecutors has been submitted to an investigating court in Esplugues de Llobregat, which has been probing the mother-of-two. The Spanish tax office had launched an investigation into the matter. During the investigation, the tax officers spent more than one-year check-up on the activities of the singer. They even kept an eye over her visits to her favorite hairdressers and monitored her social media activities to prove that she spent three years in question in Spain, not abroad.
After the investigation, the officers concluded that the singer spent 242 days in Spain in 2012, 212 days in 2013, and 243 days in the country in 2014. The report presented by the officers was submitted by the prosecutors with a criminal complaint alleging that the time Shakira “spent out of Spain were 'sporadic absences' linked to work commitments.”
As per the Spanish tax laws, people who spend more than 183 days in a given calendar in Spain are considered to be Spain residents and have to pay taxes to the government.
However, Shakira has time and again denied any wrongdoing. In an interview with Elle Magazine published last week, Shakira said she did not owe anything to the Spanish Tax Office. "These accusations are false," she said.
"While Gerard and I were dating, I was on a world tour. I spent more than 240 days outside Spain, so there was no way I qualified as a resident," she added. “The Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate. It's clear they wanted to go after that money no matter what."
Her attorney said Shakira who was a Bahamas resident at that time, earned most of her money from international tours until 2014. Then she moved to Spain full-time only in 2015 and has since then met all her tax obligations. Earlier, the singer claimed that she has already paid 17.2 million euros to Spanish tax authorities and argued that the Spanish prosecutors are trying to claim money she earned during her international tour. Hitting back at the singer’s claims, a Barcelona court dismissed an appeal from the singer to drop all the charges in May, this year.
A spokesperson for the singer said in a statement that "Shakira has always cooperated and abided by the law, demonstrating impeccable conduct as an individual and a taxpayer, and faithfully following the counsel of PriceWaterhouse Coopers, a prestigious and globally recognized tax firm. Unfortunately, the Spanish Tax Office, which loses one out of every two lawsuits with its taxpayers, continues to violate her rights and pursue yet another baseless case. Shakira is confident that her innocence will be proven by the end of the judicial process."