Though her hips don’t lie, Shakira has been at the center of a tax fraud case in Spain since last summer and is awaiting a trial for an alleged $16.2 million in taxes from 2012 through 2014. Things are only getting worse. Earlier today, per CNN, a judge in the Barcelona suburb of Esplugues de Llobregat opened a second investigation for two counts of tax fraud in 2018. Shakira has denied all the charges.
“As has been stated on numerous occasions, Shakira defends having always acted in compliance with the law and under the guidance of the best tax experts,” her P.R. firm said in a statement. “Now she is focused on her artistic life in Miami and is calm and confident in a favorable resolution to her tax affairs.”
The first count of tax evasion she stands accused of comes from 2012, 2013, and 2014. During that time, Judge Marco Jesús Juberías argues the singer lived in Spain for more than 200 days in each of those years, making her liable to pay those taxes. However, Shakira says that she was living in the Bahamas at that time as that was her primary residence. Meanwhile, the local press accused her of having a home in Barcelona with her then-partner, former Barcelona football player Gerard Piqué. This is also presumably before she told Tom Cruise to leave her alone. Furthermore, the judge accuses her and her financial adviser of using a series of off-shore companies as tax shelters during those years. If convicted of the first charge and prosecutors get their way, Shakira could face up to eight years in prison, plus fines.
In September 2022, Shakira told Elle she “paid everything they claimed I owed, even before they filed a lawsuit. So, as of today, I owe zero to them.” Additionally, she accused the Spanish courts of regularly doing this to wealthy celebrities, using the press to sway public opinion and “coerce settlement agreements.”
“They’ve resorted to a salacious press campaign to try to sway people, and apply pressure in the media along with the threat of reputational damage in order to coerce settlement agreements,” she said. “It is well known that the Spanish tax authorities do this often not only with celebrities like me (or [Cristiano] Ronaldo, Neymar, [Xabi] Alonso, and many more), it also happens unjustly to the regular taxpayer. It’s just their style.”
