Shakira arrived this morning at the Barcelona Court ready to face the trial for tax fraud that had been pending for five years with the Tax Agency. However, the singer reached a last-minute agreement with the accusations, achieving the trial and closing the matter once and for all.
The legal representation team of the Colombian singer has issued a statement in which it has explained the details of the agreement and why the artist would have chosen this route to resolve the legal conflict.
Shakira's legal defense has reached an agreement that puts an end to the criminal process for 2012-14 in tax matters in Spain. The legal team, aware of the wear and time that this process entails for a singer of international prestige like Shakira, has reached a financial agreement with the prosecution in order to put an end to the process; and thus avoid the impact of media exposure and trial time, which on many occasions is of exhausting length.
● Despite all the efforts to defend her innocence, the criminal process and the pressure from the Tax Agency during these five years have generated an enormous loss of time and resources for the artist; and Shakira now feels the need to prioritize her career and the stability of her and her children:
○ “I felt ready to face a trial and defend my innocence. My lawyers were convinced that we had a winning trial. However, after many years of struggle, I have made this decision. I had two options: continue fighting until the end, mortgaging my peace of mind and that of my children, stop making songs, albums and tours, without being able to enjoy my career and the things I like, or make an agreement, close and leave this chapter behind. of my life looking forward. I have come to the conclusion that it is not a triumph to win if the price is having so many years of your life stolen from you. I greatly admire those Spanish citizens, like Xabi Alonso, Sito Pons and many others, who have fought to the end, investing years of their lives in this, but for me, today, winning is getting my time back. What good is it for me to win a procedure in the end if I have to fight for 10 or 15 years and lose everything along the way?
○ “My children have asked me for it”: “I have to choose my battles and the most important one for me now is to do everything so that my children live a full life and focus on what is really important: watching them grow and spending time with them , without subjecting them to the anguish of seeing their mother in a criminal trial with the wear and tear that entails. They themselves have asked me, and I have made this decision for them. They have lived through very hard times and I want them to finally see me happy and look forward together to the future.”
○ “I feel that this system in Spain needs to be reviewed for the good of the citizens. And for my part I will continue to be an ally to make this happen. There are many people who do not have the resources to pay for a good defense or even reach an agreement and have seen their lives worn out before their eyes due to disagreements with the Treasury that could have been resolved in an area outside of the prison.
● Shakira will continue her fight against the Tax Agency in the administrative case for the 2011 fiscal year, a route with less wear and exposure than the criminal one: “from the substance to the form, the 2011 case is nonsense; Not only because I wasn't even close to being a resident in 2011, but because they have made me pay for all the working capital for my tour. They have not taken into account the expenses I incurred and I ended up paying for my tour expenses twice. There has been a kind of double taxation and they have imposed disproportionate fines on profits that did not exist.
To the point that I have had to pay 60 million. And all because, in the middle of a tour of more than 120 concerts around the world, I made visits to Spain to see the person with whom I was starting a relationship, adding a total of 70 days between all the visits. 2011 was a year in which I had no ties with Spain. I was leaving a long relationship of more than ten years with my ex-partner, Antonio de la Rúa, with whom I lived in the Bahamas; and he came to Spain sporadically. And, as if that were not enough, the 2011 case has been processed in an anomalous manner and outside the deadlines dictated by law, so it should be annulled.”
● It should be remembered that Shakira's advisors were top-level tax experts such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Ernst
● Thus, Shakira trusts in the adequate discernment of the justice authorities and that they will know how to “separate the way in which this criminal case has ended, without it conditioning or affecting the 2011 case in the slightest, since it is about a watertight legal compartment and a completely different process for all purposes", and insists: "this decision to agree is based on personal, emotional and sentimental reasons that have nothing to do with legal matters."
● The artist, whose energy during the last five years has been, to a large extent, consumed by this criminal process, looks forward to many commitments and developments in her musical career that she does not wish to postpone or postpone any further.
