Spain: open new case against Shakira for tax fraud

The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia reported this Thursday (07.20.2023) that a ssecond case against the Colombian singer Shakira, following a complaint by the Prosecutor’s Office, which accuses her of defrauding the Treasury in taxes and assets for the 2018 fiscal year. The interpreter will be tried in November for a previous case in the Barcelona Court for allegedly having defrauded 14.5 million euros between 2012 and 2014.

“The investigative court 2 of Esplugues de Llobregat has opened a procedure derived from the complaint filed by the Prosecutor’s Office against the singer Shakira for two alleged crimes against the Public Treasury by personal income tax and wealth tax for the year 2018″, indicated the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) in a statement. The court said it had no information on how much money would have been defrauded in this second case.

The artist responded through a public relations company, which ensures that Shakira has always “acted in accordance with the law and under the advice of the best tax experts.”

The new case complicates the criminal scenario for the interpreter, who already returned the 14.5 million euros that the Tax Agency demanded plus another three million in interest, but he rejected an agreement to reduce his sentence in exchange for accepting the facts that were imputed to him. The singer has always defended her innocence and she assures that due to her profession, she maintained a lifestyle in continuous movement at that time and she did not officially reside in Spain.

The Prosecutor’s Office, on the other hand, maintains that Shakira resided between 2012 and 2014 more than half of the year in Spain and therefore should have paid taxes in the country, despite the fact that his official residence was the Bahamas. In 2018, the fiscal year that led to the new complaint, the Colombian artist had already established her residence in Spain, and the Tax Agency detected other irregularities in her tax settlement.

For the first cause, The Prosecutor’s Office asks for eight years and two months in prison, as well as a fine of 23.8 million euros, for six crimes of tax fraud and allegedly evading the payment of taxes to the Spanish Treasury.