Shakira will face new tax fraud lawsuit in Spain

After being accused by the Spanish Justice as the alleged author of six crimes against the Public Treasury and having defrauded around BRL 77 million from the Spanish Treasury between 2012 and 2014, the singer Shakira, 46, may now be the target of a new lawsuit.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, a spokesman for the Supreme Court of Justice of Catalonia said that the Court of Instruction Number 2 in Esplugues de Llobregat opened a case following a complaint filed by prosecutors against singer Shakira for two tax crimes. They relate to income tax and wealth tax for the 2018 Spanish tax year.

The singer has always denied any involvement with anything illegal in the country, where she lived for years with her ex-husband, Gerard Piqué. The artist claimed that she was persecuted and that the Spanish Treasury used “unacceptable methods to damage her reputation and force her to reach an agreement”, as stated by the tabloid.

In 2022, the Public Ministry even asked for her arrest and a fine of more than R$ 120 million. Under local law, anyone who spends more than 183 days in a given calendar year in Spain is considered a Spanish resident for tax purposes.

Shakira, who was previously a tax resident in the Bahamas, only registered as a full-time tax resident in Spain in 2015. But she had already started dating Piqué five years earlier.