Spanish prosecutors have filed new tax fraud charges against Colombian singer Shakira, over claims that she avoided paying €14.5 million in taxes between 2012 and 2014 by using shell companies in Malta, and elsewhere, to conceal income she received while residing in Spain.
This comes after she recently paid the Spanish government $25 million following an investigation into possible tax evasion committed through a company that she owns in Malta which manages her intellectual property rights and brands.
The fresh charges were filed in the Barcelona suburb of Esplugues de Llobregat, where she lives with Barcelona football star Gerard Piqué.
According to prosecutors, Shakira did not pay taxes on income she received through 14 shell companies in Malta, the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Luxembourg and Panama while she was living in Spain.
The shell companies were allegedly used “with the sole objective of hiding the income and assets of the defendant from the Treasury”.
According to Spanish law, a resident who spends 183 days or more in the country needs to pay taxes on their worldwide income in Spain.
According to prosecutors, Shakira claimed that her tax residency was in the Bahamas when she had actually not spent any time in the Bahamas between 2012 and 2014.
She spent 243 days in Spain in 2012, 212 days in 2013, and 244 days in 2014, prosecutors say.
Shakira had claimed that she officially switched her country of residence from the Bahamas to Barcelona, where she lives with her partner Gerard Pique and the couple's two sons, in 2015.
The Spanish tax authorities had launched an investigation into the pop star for possible tax evasion during the three years before she officially relocated to Barcelona.
Central to the probe is the company the Columbian singer set up in Malta, which had become a focus of attention in the Paradise Papers, which showed how she had relocated her intellectual property rights and brands to a company based in Malta in 2009.
Shakira and Pique's relationship dates back to 2011, when Shakira started frequenting Barcelona. Spanish newspaper El Confidencial, citing papers it obtained from offshore services providers through the Paradise Papers, reported that she had listed the Bahamas as her official residence until 2015.
Shakira now joins a list of celebrities that have been in trouble with Spanish tax authorities, including footballers Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
This newspaper had, back in 2013, revealed court documents that showed how Shakira’s business empire was being run through a Malta-based company addressed at SmartCity.
The company, Tournesol Limited, was registered in Malta on 27 December 2007. The company holds the rights to her musical assets, amounting to a value of some €32 million. The company’s authorised share capital is €3.02 million. Tournesol, in turn, owns a Luxemburg-based firm named ACE Entertainment.
A search of Malta’s Registry of Companies at the Malta Financial Services Authority still shows Shakira to be the 100 per owner of the company, and her listed address of residence as being in the Bahamas.