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Date Published: 27/09/2022

ARCHIVED - Shakira faces 8 years behind bars in Spain for tax evasion

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

A Barcelona court has ruled that the ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ singer will face trial

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Shakira faces 8 years behind bars in Spain for tax evasion

A Spanish court has ruled that pop star Shakira will have to stand trial for six tax offences against the Treasury after the Colombian singer failed to reach an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office. She will now be unable to appeal this decision and if convicted by a judge, faces up to eight years in prison and a fine of 23.8 million euros.

Shakira is accused of defrauding 14.5 million euros through income tax and wealth tax evasion between 2012 and 2014. Prosecutors have asked for a particularly harsh sentence given that she went to great lengths to hide her fortune by stashing it with companies in various tax havens.

The pop sensation lost her appeal against the charges on May 26 this year and since then claims she has been relentlessly persecuted by the Spanish tax authorities. Shortly after criminal proceedings began back in 2018, she paid 17.2 million euros in back taxes to the Treasury, but prosecutors believe this is only the tip of the iceberg.

They maintain she owes 12.3 million in personal income tax and 2.19 million in wealth tax since she resided in Spain for longer than six months in each fiscal year, a time during which the ex-girlfriend of FC Barca player Gerard Pique insists she was legally resident in the Bahamas.

Spanish tax attorney Isaac Abad of Abad & Associates Lawyers and Accountants points out that it doesn’t matter if she was a resident in the tax haven of the Bahamas at the time, since according to the 183-day rule, anyone who spends 183 days or more in one country owes worldwide taxes to that country.

“It is as easy as that,” he says.

For that reason, whether Shakira is found innocent or guilty will essentialy revolve around how many days prosecutors can prove she’s spent in Spain. Unfortunately for Shakira, being in the spotlight so much of the time can actually help the prosecution construct a timeline of her comings and goings from Spain.

However, official sources claim that the singer left behind a trail of credit card receipts, bills and even social media posts which place her in Barcelona permanently between 2012 and 2014.

“It hasn’t been very beneficial to Shakira,” says Abad, “because the [tax agency’s] inspector has been investigating... surfing the web, and day by day, they have information of what she was doing on each day, and most of the days she was in Spain.”

However, it may not be so easy to prove because credit card records, for instance, are not such a cut-and-dried way to prove where someone was.

“In my opinion, even in the worst-case scenario, there are some gray areas,” says Abad. “It’s impossible to say whether Shakira was here or not. I could be in Argentina and ask my attendant to purchase a watch for me in Barcelona.”

One of the reasons the Spanish Tax Agency is taking this case so seriously is to set an example to anyone else who would try to avoid paying taxes in Spain, especially in the neighbouring tax haven country of Andorra.

“There are a lot of people from Catalonia who say they are living in Andorra to avoid Spanish taxes... [Prosecutors] are taking this seriously because they’re used to this.”

But it’s unlikely that the singer would actually go to jail, but would most likely simply be made to pay a fine, like Cristiano Ronaldo had to when he was in a similar position.

“From my experience, it’s just a matter of money. In Madrid, Ronaldo, on the first day of court admitted to having committed a penal offense. He was sentenced to two years and then he didn’t have to go to jail; he [just] had to pay everything.”

Still, it’s only in the early stages yet, and there remains the possibility that the matter will be settled out of court.

“We’ll see what happens, but I’m sure they will reach an agreement. At this stage, the only thing the judge has said is that she should be investigated. The judge is not saying that she has committed a crime or not, just that there is enough evidence to investigate,” concludes Abad.

You might also like: Shakira attacked by wild board in Barcelona park

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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