2023-07-20 09:50:02
BARCELONA (AP) — Pop star Shakira was facing new problems with the Spanish tax authorities following a court near Barcelona said Tuesday it had agreed to open an investigation into a second case of alleged tax fraud by the Colombian singer.
Shakira was already awaiting an as-yet-undated trial for allegedly failing to pay 14.5 million euros ($13.9 million) in income taxes between 2012 and 2014. The artist has denied any wrongdoing.
Now, a Spanish judge has accepted the prosecutor’s request to investigate two possible cases of Shakira’s tax fraud in 2018. The court said it had no information on how much money would have been involved.
The two cases were processed in a court in the town of Esplugues de Llobregat, near Barcelona.
The first case revolves around where Shakira lived between 2012 and 2014. The Barcelona prosecutor’s office alleges that the multi-Grammy winner spent more than half of that period in Spain and should have paid taxes in the country, even though her official residence was in Bahamas.
Shakira, whose real name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, has had ties to Spain since she began a relationship with now-retired soccer player Gerard Piqué. The couple, who have two children, lived together in Barcelona until last year, when she ended their relationship following 11 years.
Over the past decade, Spanish authorities have gone following soccer stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for failing to pay all their due taxes. Both were convicted of tax evasion but avoided going to prison because the law allows the judge to exempt people without criminal records from serving sentences of less than two years.
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