Shakira (Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll) has rejected the agreement offered by the Barcelona Prosecutor's Office to avoid sitting on the defendant's bench for defrauding the Treasury of 14.5 million euros. The Colombian singer has decided to go to trial for tax fraud, since she "fully" trusts her innocence, and she criticizes "the persecution" to which she is being subjected by the treasury.
After his legal team has been negotiating with the Barcelona Prosecutor's Office an agreement to reduce the sentence that could correspond to him for the four crimes of which he is accused, this morning he has decided to reject the latest offer from the public ministry.
In a statement, Shakira assures that she has chosen to "leave the issue in the hands of the law, with the peace of mind and the confidence that justice will prove her right." "The Prosecutor's Office has insisted on collecting the money earned on my international tours and on "The Voice" when I was not yet a resident in Spain, and they have resorted to improper means to pressure, as they do daily and unfairly with thousands of for-profit taxpayers,” he says.
Shakira and her team consider that this case constitutes "a total violation of her rights, since (the artist) has always shown impeccable conduct, as a person and as a taxpayer." In this sense, she recalls that before the criminal process she returned 17.2 millions that the Treasury claimed from him and that "for many years" he has not had any pending debt.
The singer is also critical of the Tax Agency, assuring that "there has never been such an unreasonable and fierce persecution by the treasury, nor such an evident use of media and reputational pressure as a collection mechanism". In addition, she reproaches the Prosecutor's Office for not having provided direct evidence to support her accusation and for having maintained "a completely intransigent attitude throughout the investigation."
Last May, the Barcelona Court dismissed the appeal filed by the singer to avoid going to trial for the open case for six alleged crimes against the Public Treasury, with a total of 14.5 million euros, as had already been decided. before the Court of Instruction 2 of Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona).
In this case, it is at issue whether Shakira supposedly stopped paying taxes in Spain in 2012, 2013 and 2014 despite being obliged to do so because that is where she had her tax residence, since she had been in the country more than 183 days a year.
At this point, his defense argued that at that time he was a resident in the Bahamas, and reproaches that only attempts have been made to demonstrate "his permanence for certain days, but not even close to what the law requires to be considered a resident" in Spain.
In this Wednesday's statement, the defense considers that the Prosecutor's Office has "abused an indeterminate legal concept, such as sporadic absences, based on a technically debatable question of who does not even accrue in Spain since their benefits come from abroad where he works and exercises his profession".
The judge who processed her did so by rejecting the defense version, according to which she did not reside in Spain at that time, and recalled that in May 2012 Shakira bought a house and began to build it, rented a recording studio for a year and her pregnancy was monitored at a clinic in Barcelona.
The instructor and the judges of the Barcelona Court, who endorsed processing her, believe that in the case there are "sufficient elements" that Shakira had established her habitual residence in Spain, and that she remained physically in Spain for 183 days apart from the outings that could be considered occasional, punctual or sporadic.
Specifically, the taxes that Shakira allegedly defrauded are the Personal Income Tax (IRPF) -with a total of 12,371,197 euros- and the Wealth Tax (IP) -2,191,771 euros-, adding between the two a total of 14,562,968 euros.
