Did the Sword of Damocles spoil the Colombian star’s evening in Cannes? Passing through the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, where Baz Luhrmann’s biopic Elvis, the king of rock and roll, was previewed, the queen of Latin music may have had some thoughts for the tax evasion case that risk of bringing him to trial in Spain. A Barcelona court announced on Thursday that it had rejected an appeal by the 45-year-old singer concerning suspicions of fraud between 2012 and 2014. In the line of sight of the authorities: an amount of 14.5 million euros.
According to the prosecution, Shakira had been living in Spain since 2011, the year her relationship with FC Barcelona footballer Gerard Pique was made public, but had maintained until 2015 her tax residence in the Bahamas, considered a tax haven. A statement refuted by the singer, who had asked for the prosecution to be dropped on the grounds that she was not residing in Spain at the time, but indeed in the Bahamas. In vain. “We can consider that the applicant had his habitual residence in Spain”, ruled Thursday the court, which considered that “the documentation provided to prove that the tax residence was in another country does not seem to be sufficient”. The prosecution has yet to present its indictment while a judge must decide on the formal referral of Shakira to court.
Shakira’s lawyers are seeing red. They argued that until 2014, most of her income came from her international tours and that she lived no more than six months a year in Spain, a necessary condition to characterize a tax residence in the country. The singer’s lawyers said in a statement that “Shakira’s conduct in tax matters has always been beyond reproach in all countries in which she has had to pay her taxes”. She has “no debt to the Spanish tax authorities and proceeded to pay the sums (claimed by the tax authorities) as soon as she learned of the amount”, they added. Notwithstanding, a trial therefore appears closer and closer for the interpreter of Hips Don’t Lie, Waka Waka or encire Loca.
The name of the international star appears alongside those of the former King of Spain Juan Carlos I, the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, or the former Beatles Ringo Starr, and many others among the personalities cited in the Pandora Papers. This vast investigation published in October 2021 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists accuses several hundred people of having concealed assets in offshore companies, in particular for the purposes of tax evasion. Also identified in 2017 in the Paradise Papers, Shakira currently resides in the outskirts of Barcelona, ??with Gerard Pique and their two children.
