Barcelona. The Colombian singer Shakira has attacked the Spanish Treasury for “using it” for exemplary purposes, to the point of “violating” her right to privacy while investigating her for alleged tax fraud, and maintains that since 2011 she has paid more than 104 million of euros in taxes worldwide.
Source: EFE
This is stated in the defense brief that the singer’s lawyers have presented before a court in the Spanish town of Esplugues de Llobregat, which has sent her to trial for six crimes against the public treasury accused of defrauding 14.5 million euros between 2012 and 2014, pretending that he did not reside in Spain.
In the letter, to which EFE has had access, the lawyers of Isabel Mebarak, Shakira, now defended by the Molins law firm in Barcelona, They reproach the Treasury for having mounted a “media campaign” with the sole objective of “forcing” the singer so that “despite her innocence, she pleads guilty and agrees with the accusations.”.
For the defense, the Spanish Tax Agency has acted with a “collection effort” and with “exemplary purposes for the rest of Spanish taxpayers”, resorting to “measures that violate the right to privacy, such as requests to medical centers to obtain confidential information” with in order to demonstrate that he resided in Spain for more than 183 days a year and was obliged to pay taxes.
The interpreter did not spend most of the year in Spain, according to her lawyers, since she was a tax resident in the Bahamas from 2004 until the end of 2014, when she settled in Barcelona.
The artist, adds the letter, “has scrupulously complied with all its tax obligations in the multiple territories with which it has had professional links”without a single sanction, in addition to the fact that “he carries out extensive philanthropic work” through the Pies Descalzos Foundation and Latin America in Solidarity Action.
And since 2011, precise, “has paid taxes worldwide for a global amount that exceeds 104 million euros (…), of which 90 million have been paid to the Spanish Public Treasury”.
PROSECUTION OF THE PROSECUTION
The Prosecutor’s Office asks her for a total of eight years and two months in prison and a fine of 23.8 million euros, after the singer rejected an agreement to avoid being tried, arguing that she trusts her innocence after having paid about 14.5 million euros that the Tax Agency demanded and another 3 of interest.
But since none of the sentences requested exceeds two years in jail and the singer has no criminal record, so in case of conviction she could avoid going to prison if the court agrees.
The Prosecutor’s Office maintains that the singer lived in Spain on a regular basis between 2012 and 2014, first in Barcelona and then in Esplugues de Llobregat, a town neighboring that city, with her then partner, the now-retired Spanish footballer Gerard Piqué.
For this reason, it maintains that it had the obligation to pay taxes in Spain for all of its income regardless of whether it had been obtained in part in other countries and accuses it of using a network of companies based in a tax haven and in nations such as Malta. or Panama to hide your income.
The singer’s lawyers defend, among other arguments, that until 2015 her presence in Spain did not exceed the term that obliges her to pay taxes and that her income was managed through a Maltese company that complies with all legal requirements.
