This week on Legally Us, Rachael Bennett, a certified family law specialist and senior attorney at Sullivan Law & Associates, breaks down Shakira’s legal win in her years-long tax fraud case.
On Monday, May 18, the 49-year-old singer was acquitted by a Spanish Court. In court documents obtained by the Associated Press, it stated that the Spanish government must return more than $64 million in wrongfully imposed fines.
“The key issue was residency under Spanish law. Shakira would generally be treated as a tax resident if she spent more than 183 days in Spain within a calendar year, and that matters because a Spanish tax resident can be taxed on their income that they earn worldwide, anywhere in the world, while a non-resident is generally taxed only on income that’s earned or connected to Spain itself,” Bennett explains. “The court here found that Spanish tax authorities could only prove that Shakira spent 163 days in Spain in 2011 which is 20 days short of that legal threshold, and one of the biggest pieces of evidence her defense team leaned on was the fact that she was actually on a world tour in 2011 and because she had such a grueling tour schedule, that gave her significant evidence that she was physically outside of Spain.”
Shakira Acquitted in Tax Fraud Case, Will Receive $64 Million From Spain
In a statement to the BBC, Shakira said that she had been “enduring brutal public targeting, orchestrated campaigns to destroy my reputation, and sleepless nights that ultimately impacted my health and my family’s well-being” for years.
Shakira Buda Mendes/Getty Images“There was never any fraud, and the Administration itself could never prove otherwise, simply because it wasn’t true,” she continued. “Yet, for nearly a decade, I was treated as guilty.”
The dispute centered on the 2011 tax year, when Spanish authorities alleged that Shakira was a resident of Spain. Under Spanish law, she would have been classified as a resident if she had spent at least 183 days in the country. The court maintained that her ties to Spain were linked to her former relationship with Gerard Piqué, whom she dated from 2010 to 2022.
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In a separate tax fraud case, Shakira was accused of defrauding the Spanish government of $15 million in taxes from 2012 to 2014. She denied all of the allegations against her. In July 2023, Shakira had settled with the Spanish government before they went to trial.
“For this 2011 resolution, there really hasn’t been any repercussions yet for the Spanish tax agencies. Once this ruling came out, they instantly announced their intent to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court in Spain, and under Spanish law, the government can legally freeze the payout while a case is pending appeal. So, no money is going to be transferred to Shakira until the Supreme Court issues some kind of a final non-appeal verdict in her favor,” Bennett tells Us. “I would say if that appeal is unsuccessful and she does prevail ultimately in this case, this could have long-term implications on how the Spanish tax authorities choose to prosecute these perceived tax violations in the future.”
She adds, “The trial court really criticized their current practices as relying on speculative information and making assumptions, as well as being overly aggressive, even though they lacked sufficient proof in the case. It seems like maybe to me they tried to make an example out of Shakira, but if this ruling survives appeal, it could be said that the roles have been reversed.”
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