Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Global Citizen
On Monday, a judge in Madrid acquitted Shakira of tax-fraud charges dating back to 2021 and ordered Spain’s tax authority to overturn the €55 million ($64 million) fine it imposed on her. Reuters reported that Spain’s treasury will have to reimburse the Colombian singer more than €60 million (nearly $70 million), including interest.
This particular chapter of Shakira’s tax ordeal started in 2021, when she was slapped with huge fines related to that tax year. At the time, officials claimed the singer had spent more than 183 days in Spain in 2011, which put her on the hook for personal income taxes. On appeal, the court determined that Shakira had actually only spent 163 days in the country that year. The tax agency intends to appeal this decision.
If you thought this whole situation was settled years ago, that’s probably because you were thinking about Shakira’s other Spanish tax situation. In 2018, she was charged with tax evasion, with prosecutors alleging that she had dodged paying €14.5 million by claiming to live in the Bahamas while actually living in Catalonia from 2012 to 2014. Shakira has always denied these allegations, but struck a deal with prosecutors right as her trial began in 2023. She accepted the charges, paying a fine of over €7 million and an additional €438,000 that kept her from spending any time behind bars.
Now that she’s out of the woods, Shakira seems thrilled. “After more than eight years of enduring brutal public targeting, orchestrated campaigns to destroy my reputation, and sleepless nights that ultimately impacted my health and my family’s well-being, the National High Court has finally set the record straight,” she said in a statement. “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. Today, that narrative crumbles, and it does so with the full force of a court ruling.”
With Shakira’s tax woes now actually over, she can finally focus on stuff that really matters: making another banger for Zootopia 3.
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