Tax evasion: Shakira is approaching trial

The trial in Spain for Colombian star Shakira, who is facing charges of tax evasion of 14.5 million euros (approximately 20 million CAD), is approaching, the Spanish judge announced last Thursday, after rejecting the appeal.

A Barcelona court has rejected an appeal by a 45-year-old singer seeking to have his charges dropped, saying he had not lived in Spain for years facing fraud charges. Bahamas.

“The applicant may be deemed to have resided in Spain,” the court said in a statement, stating that “the documentation provided is not sufficient to prove that the tax residence is in another country.”

The trail therefore appears closer and closer to the narrator of the victories Hips do not lie, waka waka Where Loka. But the prosecution still has to submit its indictment, while the court must decide on Judge Shakira’s official referral.

The singer’s lawyers said in a statement that “Shakira’s conduct in tax matters has always been beyond reproach in all countries where she pays taxes”.

She “had no debt to the Spanish tax authorities and started paying the sums (claimed by the tax authorities) as soon as she found out about the amount”, they added.

The prosecution alleges that the singer committed tax evasion amounting to 14.5 million euros in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

According to the prosecution, she has been living in Spain since 2011, the year her relationship with FC Barcelona footballer Gerard Pique was revealed, but until 2015 she continued her tax residence in the Bahamas, which is considered a tax haven.

Her lawyers argue that until 2014, most of her income came from her international travels and that she did not live in Spain for more than six months a year, which was a condition for establishing her tax residence in the country.

Shakira’s name was cited in an extensive research Pandora Papers published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists at the end of 2021, alleging that hundreds of individuals hid assets in offshore companies, especially with the intention of ‘tax evasion’.

The international star, who has sold more than 60 million records, currently lives in the suburbs of Barcelona with Gerard Pique and their two children.