The legal problems are accumulating for the singer Shakira, apart from her troubles for the custody of the children with the ex-soccer player Gerard Piqué. A court in Barcelona, number 2 in Esplugues de Llobregat, has opened a criminal case against the Colombian singer, who lives in the US after parting ways with the former Barça central defender.
Justice has opened a procedure, following a complaint filed by the Prosecutor’s Office against the author of ‘Waka-waka’. Shakira is being investigated for two alleged crimes against the Public Treasury for personal income tax and wealth tax for the year 2018, according to sources from the TSJC.
It rains, it pours, since the singer will soon be tried for six tax offenses allegedly committed between 2012 and 2014. She will sit in the dock as of November 20. She faces an eight-year prison sentence, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, for the alleged fraud of 14.5 million to the Treasury. Shakira could follow the trial from Miami, where she lives after leaving Barcelona, and she will be present in the courtroom the day she has to testify. The Prosecutor’s Office asks for her a fine of 23.7 million.
The Colombian singer has not been slow to defend herself against the accusations for these alleged tax crimes, stating “to have always acted in accordance with the law and under the advice of the best tax experts.” In a statement, her defense has added that for now she has not received formal notification of the complaint but that she was known before by the media, which in her opinion shows “the media and reputational pressure to which she is subjected.”
The Tax Agency accuses her of having stopped paying 14.5 million in income tax and companies between 2012 and 2014. She alleges that she did not live in Spain and that although she already shared her life with Piqué, she traveled to Barcelona sporadically. Her argument is that she settled in the Catalan capital at the end of 2014, when her eldest son went to school. The Treasury and the Prosecutor’s Office maintain that between 2012 and 2014 she already lived in Spain and therefore she had to pay taxes at the Spanish Tax Agency. Her lawyers and her Prosecutor’s Office were about to reach an out-of-court agreement, which was cut short a year ago.
The singer’s defense has also stated that Shakira is “focused on her artistic life in Miami and is calm and confident in the favorable resolution of her tax matters.”
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