Shakira may face trial in Spain over claim she evaded £13million in tax

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Shakira may face trial in Spain after prosecutors claimed she avoided paying £13million in tax in the years 2012, 2013 and 2014.

The 44 year old Colombian singer, real name Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, has been accused of six offences, which could result in the hitmaker serving jail time if convicted.

Shakira changed residences in 2015 from the Bahamas to Barcelona, where she lives with her partner, footballer Gerard Piqué, 34, and their two sons, Milan, eight, and Sasha, six.

While the singer said that she lived in the Bahamas for several years before then, was not a resident of Spain and only visited the country "sporadically", prosecutors claim she did actually live in the Catalan capital during those years.


Now, judge Marco Jesús Juberías has ruled that there is "sufficient indications" for Shakira to go to trial for allegedly avoiding the payment of 14.5million euros, according to Euro Weekly.

“Isabel Mebarak Ripoll stopped paying taxes in Spain during the years 2012, 2013 and 2014, despite having an obligation to do so because she has her tax residence here,” judge Marco said.

A report from the defence, obtained by Euro Weekly, reads: “What’s important is not so much the residence in the Bahamas, but whether Shakira can be considered a fiscal resident in Spain."

The publication went on to claim that the prosecution alleged that Shakira “used a series of mercantile companies” to appear as owners of her assets and she appeared as the real headline “ultimately and in companies based in territories considered as tax havens".

It's been said the star denied the allegations during the hour and a half long hearing in Esplugues de Llobregat, near Barcelona, and is planning on presenting an appeal to the court against the judgment.

In 2017, Shakira appeared in the Paradise Papers, which was an investigation by the Guardian and other news organisations into the world of offshore finance.

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It stated that Shakira was listed as a resident of the Bahamas despite living in Barcelona. A lawyer representing her at the time, told the publication that as an artist she had lived in a variety of places “throughout her professional career and, in every case, has fully met the laws of all the jurisdictions where she has resided”.

OK! Online has approached Shakira's representatives for further comment.

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