Shakira triumphs in court with Spain ordered to repay $70M after tax fraud acquittal
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Shakira’s long tax-fraud nightmare has ended with the government of Spain on the hook to refund nearly $70 million to the Colombian-born singer after prosecutors failed to prove she spent enough time in that country to owe it a chunk of her earnings.Since 2018, the singer has been accused of defrauding the Spanish government in three cases, for the tax years 2011, 2012-2014 and 2018.
Over the years, deals were offered, rejected and accepted; charges were dropped, other charges were filed; and an eight-year prison sentence was threatened.Music Singer Shakira, who just split from soccer star Gerard Pique, said Spanish tax collectors ‘started to salivate’ over her money when they began dating.Shakira maintained her innocence, saying in 2022 that “Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate,” referring to her relationship with Barcelona-born footballer Gerard Piqué, the father of their sons Milan and Sasha.
Piqué and the singer, who met in 2010 when she did “Waka Waka,” the official song of that year’s FIFA World Cup, separated in 2022.A representative for the singer, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, did not respond immediately to The Times’ request for comment on the court decision.However, despite there being no fraud, Shakira told People on Monday in a statement that “for nearly a decade, I was treated as guilty.
Every step of the process was leaked, distorted, and amplified, using my name and public image to send a threatening message to the rest of the taxpayers.”She added, “Today, that narrative crumbles, and it does so with the full force of a court ruling.” Music Shakira said she was inspired by women ‘who stand up for what they feel and think’ while recording her chart-topping Piqué dis track.Everything revolved around how many days Shakira spent in Spain in the years in question...