Shakira may currently be in the “darkest hours” of her life. However, she’s paving her way through the light.
Before dropping her first new music album in five years, the singer told Elle Magazine about the tax fraud case filed by the Spanish government, spelling her with up to eight years imprisonment.
Shakira declined a settlement offer – the specifications had not been revealed, blasting the tax fraud case to trial.
Previously, she was claimed to have failed to pay $15 million in taxes between 2012 and 2014 in Spain, a time in which the superstar claims she was not residing in the country.
Per the court documents seen by Reuters, Shakira was inhabiting there during that period due to the record of her buying a home in Barcelona in 2012. (Her official address was listed as the Bahamas.)
Aside from imprisonment, the filing urges a fine of $24 million should she be convicted.
The star repulsed the Spanish government’s allegations as “false accusations,” sharing with Elle that she plans to stand against the case as a “matter of principle.”
Shakira claims she didn’t live in the country for the necessary period of time for tax purposes, 183 days, due to her being “busy fulfilling my professional commitments around the world.”
“I’ve paid everything they claimed I owed, even before they filed a lawsuit,” she stated.
“So, as of today, I owe zero to them. And finally, I was advised by one of the four biggest tax specialist firms in the world, PricewaterhouseCoopers, so I was confident that I was doing things correctly and transparently from day one.”
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Shakira Says It’s the Country’s Strategy
Shakira argues everything is equal for the course when we talk about the Spanish tax authorities and the strategy they are utilizing against her, other prominent personalities, and the “regular taxpayer.”
“However, even without evidence to support these fictional claims, as they usually do, 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 elaborated.
“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 more), it also happens unjustly to the regular taxpayer.
“It’s just their style. But I’m confident that I have enough proof to support my case and that justice will prevail in my favor.”
No date has been announced yet for Shakira’s trial.
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