Shakira settles in tax fraud case, paying fine and avoiding prison 

Pop star Shakira reached a deal with Spain’s prosecutor before her tax fraud case started at the Court of Barcelona, her press team announced just minutes after she entered the building on Monday morning at 9:55 am.

The Colombian accepted a three-year prison sentence, but she will not go to jail as she will pay a fine instead.

Shakira Isabel Mebarak already paid the full amount the prosecution requested, after they argued the singer had defrauded tax authorities €14.5 million between 2012 and 2014. She also paid a 50% surcharge. 

In a brief court hearing, the judge asked Shakira if she was aware of all of the terms of the agreement and if she acknowledged the facts and accepted the new sentence, to which the singer responded affirmatively.

The singer admitted that she resided in Catalonia at the time of the events, even though she previously maintained that was not the case. 

A statement released by Shakira's legal team said that "conscious of the time-consuming nature of the trial, [Shakira] has decided to put an end to it, and to avoid the media impact and court time that a trial can involve." 

"I felt ready to face trial and defend my innocence," Shakira said in the written statement, but she does not consider it a "triumph to win if the price to pay is that they steal so many years of your time." 

Her plan right now is to focus on her two sons, Shakira says, so she has to "choose her battles, and the most important one is to focus on her children." 

The court case was set to start on Monday and conclude on December 4, with over a hundred journalists registered to follow the case. 

Overall, there were over 100 testimonies in the case, and Shakira was set to testify on Monday. Just at the beginning of the trial, the singer sat down and the judge read the conditions. She only answered with three yeses, and the tax fraud case was over.

Spain’s system needs changing 

The singer and the prosecution had already reached a deal months ago, but Shakira decided to step aside as she considered "abusive," and defended her innocence and that she had already paid over €17 million to the tax office.

Shakira was accused of saying that she used to reside outside of Spain when she was already living with her former partner, ex footballer Gerard Piqué, in Barcelona. The court considered the artist to have lived in Catalonia between 2012 and 2014 and therefore should have paid taxes in Spain.  

The prosecution and the Spanish tax authorities said that Shakira created several companies in tax havens, such as The Netherlands, Malta, Luxembourg, the British Virgin Islands, the US, Panamá, Caiman Islands, and also in Barcelona and Madrid, to avoid paying taxes despite living for more than half a year in Spain. The judge, before the court case started, believed that the singer did not pay taxes in 2012, despite living in the territory for 243 days, in 2013, when she spent 212 days in Spain, and in 2014, when Shakira stayed for 244 days.  

The law stipulates that residents who live in Spain for 183 days or more must pay tax. The judge had considered the other days "sporadic absences," therefore the pop star avoided paying €12.3 million in IRPF taxes and around €2.2 million in wealth taxes. 

Before the court case started, Shakira’s lawyers said that she had no more debt with the Spanish tax agency as she had already paid the requested €17.3 million that she owed. She paid "as soon as she learned the figure she had to pay to tax authorities," the lawyers explained. 

Meanwhile, Shakira defends that the “Spanish system needs to be revised for the good of citizens. I will continue to battle for this,” she said in writing. 

2011 case 

The singer will continue to fight a case relating to 2011 as “it does not make any sense,” as she was not even close to be a resident, “but because the tax office has forced me to pay all my tour’s work,” she said. 

“The year 2011 was a year that I did not have any relationship with Spain. I found myself breaking up with my ten-year partner, with whom I used to live in the Bahamas, and I came to Spain very sporadically,” she added. 

Shakira claims she spent 70 days in Spain in 2011, and hopes the judicial system can separate the two court cases. 

“The decision to settle is based on personal and emotional reasons, and not because of any judicial reasons,” she said. 

The singer is also being investigated in a separate case for allegedly defrauding €5.8 million of personal income tax and wealth tax in 2018.