The singer alleges that she has paid 90 million
Colombian singer Shakira Mebarak He has presented his defense brief in court this Friday in which he assures that he has paid 104 million euros in taxes worldwide, of the 90 they have been paid into the Spanish Treasury. The artist rejects the accusation of having defrauded the Tax Agency of 14.5 million euros and for which the prosecution claims eight years in prison, alluding to the fact that between 2012 and 2014, the period investigated, did not exceed 183 days per year of presence in Spain required to have the obligation to pay taxes in our country, since their way of life is “itinerant” as a consequence of their international commitments.
The defense brief of his lawyer Pau Molins Amat Shakira maintains, she is a taxpayer who has always had “impeccable” tax conduct and who, from the outset, relied on first-line advisors such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers, while stressing that “reliable evidence” has not been presented to support the accusations against singer. The artist from Barranquilla affirms, in this sense, that she “has been fiercely persecuted in the criminal and media sphere using unacceptable methods to attack her reputation and force her to reach an agreement.” The singer has already paid into the Treasury the debt that is claimed, plus her interest, more than 17 million euros.
Shakira specifies in her defense brief that coinciding with her eldest son’s schooling at the end of 2014, it was she herself who, “with total transparency and good faith”, declared herself a tax resident in our country, “in an unequivocal display” of their willingness to comply with all their obligations to the Treasury. In her opinion, it is “difficult” to understand that the Tax Agency extends her claim even to the year 2011, when that year the singer spent a maximum of 60 days in Spain. In subsequent years, she was hired by the North American network NBC to participate as a jury in the program The Voice, which required her physical presence in the United States with her first child. It is, the singer emphasizes, facts “notorious, public and recorded with numerous photographic and audiovisual material,” she emphasizes.
The defense describes her presence in Spain as “sporadic” to visit her boyfriend, the footballer Gerard Piqué, from whom she has recently separated. “During this first phase there was no firm commitment between the two, due to their respective personal situations, and they could only see each other taking advantage of vacation periods or fleeting trips, whether in Barcelona or elsewhere,” he clarifies.
2% of your income in Spain
Another element that would make it possible to attribute tax residence in Spain would be that Shakira had been the singer’s center of economic activity. However, the singer emphasizes, our country is only 2% of the source of your worldwide income, while his center of business and professional interests are primarily in the United States. This data, in his opinion, “shows, once again, the unreasonableness of the persecution of the Spanish Treasury, which invests large public resources in a case in which there is no evidence to support an accusation.”
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In my case, they have violated my right to privacy and the presumption of innocence, the basic rights of any citizen,” says Shakira, who alleges that “the Treasury has resorted to unorthodox and unacceptable methods such as requesting private data from hospitals in which that the singer asked for an appointment”. Shakira’s team recounts as an example that the prosecution has all payments made with a number of credit cards belonging to her team and relatives made in Spain to add days of Shakira’s presence in this country, “without taking into account that, on many occasions, there are payments made simultaneously in different parts of the world”, without the artist being physically in said places”.
The defense also details that the inspection of the Tax Agency He has used contradictory dates and facts in his reports. For the trial, the prosecution has summoned dozens of people to testify as witnesses, including the neighbors of the staircase where she lived with her partner, the footballer Gerard Piqué or “people who met her on a few occasions or interviewed her only once “, says the singer.