The accusations of tax fraud against Shakira, according to her, are “false.”
The 45-year-old pop star is facing six counts of tax fraud totaling £12.2 million and up to eight years in prison, but she has chosen to contest the accusations and insisted that she did not stay in the country for more than 183 days, which would cause the Spanish government to count her as an official citizen.
I have to stand up for what I believe because these are baseless accusations, she declared. I didn’t spend 183 days a year at that time, to start with. I was occupied attending to my obligations as a professional all around the world. Second, even before they brought a case, I paid what they claimed I owed. So I owe them nothing as of right now. Last but not least, PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the four largest tax consulting firms in the world, gave me advice, giving me assurance that I was proceeding honestly and correctly from the start.
The “Objection” hitmaker, who is also subject to a punishment of £19.2 million, continued by calling the allegations made by the Spanish government “fictitious” and asserting that this is something the government frequently does to both celebrities and “ordinary taxpayers.”
“However, even without evidence to support these fictitious claims, as they typically do, they’ve resorted to a salacious press campaign to try to persuade people and apply pressure in the media along with the threat of reputational damage to coerce settlement agreements,” she said in an interview with ELLE. It is generally known that the Spanish tax authorities frequently treat average taxpayers unfairly in addition to celebrities like me (or [Cristiano] Ronaldo, Neymar, [Xabi] Alonso, and many others). They just have that style. However, I am convinced that I have established my case with sufficient evidence and that justice will be served in my favour.
The GRAMMY Award-winning singer, who was given the name Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll when she was born in Colombia, is charged with forgery.
Despite relocating to Barcelona in 2011 to be with her ex, 35-year-old Spanish player Gerard Piqué, with whom she shares sons Milan, 9, and Sasha, 7, she now lives abroad to avoid paying taxes.
According to reports, tax investigators spent more than a year monitoring the “Whenever, Wherever” singer. They reportedly even paid a visit to her regular Barcelona hair salon before scouring her social media to try to prove she spent the most of the three years in question there.
Spain.
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They came to the conclusion that she had stayed in Spain for 242 days in 2012, 212 days in 2013, and 243 days in 2014.
According to the documentation prosecutors provided, the time she spent outside of Spain was “sporadic absences” related to her job.
Shakira’s agent stated the following when the case was first made public in July 2022: “Shakira has always cooperated and abided by the law, exhibiting excellent behaviour as an individual and a taxpayer, and dutifully followed the advice of her attorneys.
PriceWaterhouse Coopers is a renowned and well-known tax company. Unfortunately, the Spanish Tax Office continues to violate her rights and pursue yet another pointless action despite the fact that it loses one out of every two disputes with its taxpayers. By the conclusion of the legal process, Shakira is convinced that her innocence will have been established.
