Shakira has agreed to a settlement deal with Spanish authorities in a tax fraud dispute that could have seen the performer sentenced to as many as eight years in prison and given a fine of 24 million euros. On Monday, the first day of the Barcelona-set trial over the matter, Shakira informed the judge that she had agreed to a deal.
Prosecutors with the Spanish government alleged that Shakira defrauded the country’s government to the tune of 14.5 million euros in taxes on her earnings between 2012 and 2014. Though Shakira moved to Spain in 2011, she maintained tax residency in the Bahamas until 2015, according to reports. The allegations were first raised in 2018, and proceedings have been ongoing since then.
The trial, which was expected to include more than 100 witnesses over several weeks, was instead called off after just eight minutes.
Shakira is to receive a suspended three-year sentence and to pay a fine of 7.3 million euros ($8 million) in addition to the previously unpaid taxes and interest. She will pay another fine of 432,000 euros ($472,000) in exchange for having her prison sentence waived.
However, she now has it on her legal record that she was found guilty of tax fraud, which could affect another pending tax case.
Barcelona alleged the Colombian singer spent more than half of that period in Spain and therefore should have paid taxes on her worldwide income there even though her official residence was still in the Bahamas. Tax rates are much lower in the Bahamas than in Spain.
“While I was determined to defend my innocence in a trial that my lawyers were confident would have ruled in my favor, I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart,” she said in a statement.
ICIJ’s Paradise Papers and Pandora Papers previously exposed Shakira’s web of shell companies in tax havens. She was among several famous actors and musicians — including Madonna and U2 frontman Bono — named in the Paradise Papers, a 2017 investigation based on 13.4 million leaked financial records obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. All denied wrongdoing.
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