Shakira has left Miami amid warnings that she can face up to eight years in prison for alleged tax fraud. The Colombian singer, 45 years old, was photographed this Tuesday with her children Sasha, seven years old, and Milan, nine, at the airport of the city.
The artist, who shares children with the Spanish soccer player Gerard Piqué, from 35 years old, from whom she recently separated after accusations of cheating, was found guilty by the Spanish prosecutor’s office of alleged tax fraud for $.5 million dollars, between the years 2012 and 2014.
The The charges are set out in an indictment filed by prosecutors with the investigating court near Barcelona, which was first made public in the past 29 of July. Now, the institution has requested a maximum sentence for six different charges of fraud for the interpreter of the song ‘I congratulate you’.
For her part, the Grammy winner has responded through her representatives that “she has always cooperated and respected the law, demonstrating impeccable conduct as a person and as a taxpayer and following faithfully the advice of PriceWaterhouse Coopers, a prestigious and world-renowned tax firm”.
The singer trusts that her innocence will be proven at the end of the judicial process, since she considers that “unfortunately, the Tax Agency Spanish, which loses one out of every two lawsuits with its taxpayers, continues to violate their rights and pursue another baseless case”.
In addition to an eight-year prison sentence, state prosecutors want Shakira is fined $29 million dollars in interest.
The Colombian interpreter is accused she used to pretend that she lived abroad to avoid paying taxes despite having moved to Barcelona in 2011 to be with Piqué. Previously, the singer had her residence in the Bahamas and was registered as a full tax resident in Spain until 2015.
Official residents in Spain must pay taxes on their income worldwide. People who usually spend more than 183 days in a calendar year in that country are considered Spanish residents for tax purposes.
The Treasury inspectors spent more than a year investigating the singer and even visited her favorite hairdresser in Barcelona and tracked her social networks to try to prove that she spent most of the three years in litigation in Spain
They concluded that he had spent 242 days in Spain at 2012, 212 days in 2013 and 243 days in the country at 2014.
The report presented by the prosecutors alleged that the time he spent outside of Spain were “sporadic absences” linked to work. For her part, Shakira has denied any wrongdoing.