The Prosecutor’s Office has formalized this Friday its indictment against Shakira, in which it requests a sentence of eight years and two months in prison for the Colombian singer for six crimes against the Public Treasury. After the possibility of an agreement vanished – Shakira rejected the last offer, which meant avoiding imprisonment -, the public ministry concludes that the artist defrauded 14.5 million euros in those years by avoiding the payment of personal income tax and estate tax. In addition to the prison sentence, which in the event of a final conviction could mean her imprisonment, she requests the payment of a fine of 23.7 million euros.
The accusation attributes to Shakira six crimes against the Public Treasury with two aggravating circumstances: due to the high amount of the fraud and due to the “use of interposed legal entities”, that is, of companies in tax havens that allowed him to hide his income. The Prosecutor’s Office, however, also appreciates a mitigating circumstance that has allowed the prison sentences to be reduced: the repair of the damage, since the artist made 17.2 million available to the court to face possible responsibilities. The prosecutor has requested that, in the trial, Shakira and a total of 37 witnesses be questioned, some of them by videoconference.
The presentation of the indictment means that, in the coming weeks, the court of Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona) that has investigated the facts will issue an order to open an oral trial. That means among other things that, if there is a last-minute agreement, Shakira will have to sit in the dock anyway, even if it is only to endorse it. Everything indicates, however, that the trial will proceed normally. The singer has harshly criticized the prosecution – whom she accused of “intransigent” and using “undue means to pressure” – and she is seeking full acquittal. Despite the media exposure that an oral hearing of these characteristics entails, she has the determination to reach the end, they transfer sources from her environment.
The Prosecutor’s Office concludes that, between 2012 and 2014, Shakira evaded the payment of taxes (income tax and assets) worth 14.5 million. The thesis of the accusation is that in that period she had already initiated her relationship with the Barça player Gerard Piqué and had established her residence in Spain for tax purposes. The proof, always according to the thesis of the accusation, is that those years he spent 183 days or more here, the requirement established by law for someone to be considered a tax resident. That is the great element of discussion in this case. Shakira has alleged from the beginning of the investigation that she had legal residence in the Bahamas.
The accusation is based on the reports of the Tax Agency inspectors, who analyzed Shakira’s daily life through her attendance at hairdressers and beauty salons, her visits to the Teknon clinic during the pregnancy of her first child or of documentary evidence, such as the rental of a recording studio near Barcelona. The technicians also tracked the artist’s social networks, which allow her to be located in Spain on most calendar days.
Companies in tax havens
In its brief, the Prosecutor’s Office details that Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll lived permanently in Barcelona since 2012 and from the following year in Esplugues, where she bought a house with Piqué. The couple’s first child, Milan, was registered that year in the civil registry of Barcelona. As an international artist, Shakira often had to travel abroad. But the prosecution considers them “sporadic absences.” With the exception of her participation in the program The Voice, in the United States, it is about “very short stays”. “Once his professional or leisure activities were over, he immediately returned to Spain,” the letter continues.
As already mentioned in her initial complaint, the Prosecutor’s Office maintains that the artist used a “corporate network” to “hide” the income she received from the Treasury. Those companies – some, the letter emphasizes, located in tax havens – were the formal holders of the income obtained by the professional activity of the singer throughout the world. The indictment cites a total of 14 companies located in the British Virgin Islands, Malta, Luxembourg, the United States or Panama.
The singer’s thesis
Shakira’s defense has tried unsuccessfully to prevent the case from going to trial. She received the final blow in May, when the Barcelona Court confirmed the existence of sufficient evidence to put her on the defendant’s bench. The singer remains firm in defending her innocence. She assures that she has always shown “full willingness to resolve any difference” with the Treasury and that she paid immediately, even before knowing which of the parties was right, the 17.2 million that the Tax Agency claimed to cover her responsibility in case of sentence.
Shakira’s strategy is to ensure, also, that she always acted following “faithfully the recommendations of the best specialists and expert advisers of PriceWaterhouseCoopers”, although the truth is that none of them has been prosecuted or even investigated in the case. Her defense insists that, during the three years under suspicion, Shakira “never stayed the required time according to the norm” due to her “international commitments”, and accuses the Prosecutor’s Office of using “indirect” evidence to try to demonstrate the her guilt. That and other arguments will be part of the defense brief that the singer will have to formalize in the coming weeks to respond to the accusation of the Prosecutor’s Office, but also of the State Attorney (which acts on behalf of the Treasury) and the Generalitat (which collects wealth tax).
You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya at Facebook Y Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
#Prosecutors #Office #asks #years #prison #Shakira #fine #million