Seven months after singer settled tax fraud case, investigative magistrate finds insufficient evidence of more withheld income taxes
Shakira has avoided more charges related to tax fraud in Spain after an investigating court shelved another probe into the Colombian singer.
In November 2023, Shakira settled a tax fraud case in exchange for a three-year suspended sentence and a fine of 7 million euros one day before her trial was slated to begin. That case — where she was accused of failing to pay 14.5 million euros in income taxes — covered the singer’s income between between 2012 and 2014.
However, in July 2023, before the first case was even settled, Spanish prosecutors announced they had opened another investigation of additional tax fraud against the singer that occurred in 2018. Shakira
Ten months later, a Spanish investigative magistrate revealed on Thursday that there wasn’t “sufficient evidence” to charge Shakira with additional charges, the Associated Press reports.
“There is no indication that can prove that Shakira Isabel M. R. had consciously and voluntarily omitted information and documentation with tax significance,” the court said of the potential fiscal crime. If prosecutors do not appeal the ruling, the matter will be considered closed.
Shakira, who faced up to eight years in prison if convicted at the first trial, had denied all the allegations, calling them “false accusations” and reiterating that she “didn’t spend 183 days per year” in Spain those years because she was “busy fulfilling my professional commitments around the world.”
The tax fraud charges stemmed from the claim that Shakira spent more than half the year in Spain every year between 2012 and 2014; Shakira listed her residence as the Bahamas during her time in Spain. Spanish tax law stipulates that anyone living in the country for more than six months is considered a resident and must pay taxes.
“I’ve paid everything they claimed I owed, even before they filed a lawsuit. So as of today, I owe zero to them,” Shakira, who moved to Miami after her 2022 breakup with Spanish soccer player Gerard Piqué following a decade-long relationship, told Elle in Oct. 2022.
