The Colombian singer Shakira acknowledged this Monday that she defrauded the Spanish Treasury of 14.5 million euros and agreed to pay fines of 7.8 million, thus avoiding serving a prison sentence.
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, 46, was due to begin the trial today in Barcelona in a case in which she was accused of tax fraud between 2012 and 2014.
Once in court, and before the trial began, he signed an agreement with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in which he acknowledged his guilt and accepted the payment of a fine of 7.8 million euros, in addition to having already regularized the amount of the accused’s tax evasion (14.5 million euros plus 3 million late payment interest), receiving a three-year conditional prison sentence.
The Spanish court considers that Shakira lived in Barcelona between 2012 and 2014, since she spent more than six months a year in the city, while the singer denied it and argued that she was a resident of the Bahamas islands.
Shakira changed her tax residence to Barcelona in 2014, but continued to deny having lived in the city before that period.
The Public Ministry requested a prison sentence of eight years and two months for the singer, accusing her of defrauding the Spanish Treasury by pretending to live outside Spain between 2012 and 2014, despite being married to Barcelona footballer Gerard Piqué, with whom she has two children. she in the city in 2013 and 2015.
In a separate investigation, the Spanish Prosecutor’s Office accused Shakira last September of tax evasion of more than 6.7 million euros in 2018, in relation to taxes on her income that year.
The Spanish justice system accused the singer of using a company based in a tax haven to avoid paying all taxes in Spain in 2018.
Source: TSF
