Colombian singer Shakira Mebarak He presented his defense in court this Friday, in which he guaranteed that the 90 euros paid to the Spanish Treasury had paid the tax of 104m euros worldwide. The artist accused the Tax Office of defrauding the Tax Office for 14.5 million Euros and demanding an eight-year prison sentence. It did not exceed 183 days in its year. Spain The necessity of paying taxes in our country, lifestyle is “mobile” as a result of its international commitments.
Attorney Pau Molins Amat’s defense While Shakira claims to be a taxpayer who has always had “perfect” tax behavior and relied on first-line advisors like PriceWaterhouseCoopers from the very beginning, she stresses that “credible evidence” has not been presented to support the accusations against the singer. . In this sense, the artist from Barranquilla affirms that he was “violently persecuted in the field of crime and the media, using unacceptable methods to attack his reputation and force him to reach a settlement.” The singer paid the alleged debt and interest more than 17m euros to the Treasury.
In her defense, Shakira states that she is the person who declared herself to be a taxpayer in our country, “with complete transparency and good faith”, “with absolute exposure”, coinciding with her eldest son going to school at the end of 2014. Their willingness to fulfill all their obligations to the Treasury. It’s “difficult” to understand that the Tax Office extended its claim until 2011, according to him. the singer spent no more than 60 days in Spain. In the following years, she was recruited by North American network NBC to appear as a judge on The Voice, which required her physical presence in the United States with her first child. The singer emphasizes that these are facts that are “notorious, public and recorded with a large number of photographs and audiovisual materials.”
The defense describes her presence in Spain as “occasional” to visit her recently separated boyfriend, football player Gerard Piqué. “At this initial stage, there was no absolute bond between the two due to their personal circumstances, and they could only see each other while taking advantage of vacation periods or short trips in Barcelona or elsewhere.”
2% of your income in Spain
Another factor that would make it possible to attribute tax residency in Spain would be the fact that Shakira was the center of economic activity of the singer. But the singer is not only 2% of your worldwide income source, business center and professional interests are primarily in the United States. According to him, these data “reveal the illogicality of the persecution of the Spanish Treasury, which invested large public resources in a case for which there was no evidence to support an accusation.”
In my case, they violated the fundamental rights of any citizen, my right to privacy and the presumption of innocence,” Shakira said, “claiming that the Treasury resorted to unorthodox and unacceptable methods, such as requesting private data from hospitals where the singer requested an appointment”. Shakira’s team cites as an example that the prosecution has it all. payments with a range of credit cards To add to the days of Shakira’s presence in this country, it was said of her team and relatives made in Spain, “without taking into account that in many cases there are simultaneous payments in different parts of the world”, without the artist physically present. Location”.
The defense also details tax office audit He used conflicting dates and facts in his reports. For the trial, the prosecution called dozens of people to testify as witnesses, including the stair neighbors with whom he lived with football player Gerard Piqué, or “people who had met him several times or had met him only once.” says the singer.