Shakira avoids prison after admitting tax fraud of 14.5 million

This Monday, Colombian singer Shakira acknowledged that she defrauded the Spanish tax authorities of 14.5 million euros and agreed to pay a fine of 7.8 million euros to avoid serving a prison sentence.

The 46-year-old artist was going to be tried in Barcelona in a case in which she was accused of tax fraud between 2012 and 2014, however, before the trial began, Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll signed an agreement with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, in which she recognized guilty and accepted the payment of a fine of 7.8 million euros.

Shakira was also forced to regularize the amount of tax evasion she was accused of, 14.5 million euros plus 3 million in late payment interest, receiving a three-year suspended prison sentence.

The Spanish court considers that Shakira lived in Barcelona between 2012 and 2014, spending 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.

In 2014, the singer changed her tax residence to Barcelona, ​​continuing 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 tax authorities by pretending to live outside Spain between 2012 and 2014, despite being married to Barcelona footballer Gerard Pique, with has two children born in the city in 2013 and 2015.

In a separate investigation, the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office accused Shakira last September of tax evasion of over 6.7 million euros in 2018, relating to taxes on her income that year.

Spanish justice accused the singer of using a company based in a tax haven to avoid paying all taxes in Spain in 2018.