By Clary Castro
05 Sep 2024, 17:33 PM EDT
Shakira has decided to break her silence regarding the tax dispute she had with the Spanish Treasury for several years. The Colombian decided to use her story to tell it in the first person so that her children can hear from her the reasons that motivated her to make all the decisions she made regarding this case.
It is worth remembering that Shakira was accused of fraud of 14.5 million euros, an amount that amounts to approximately $16 million dollars. The singer of “Dónde están los ladrónes” claims that she decided to settle, but she did not do it as an act of “cowardice” or “guilt”, but for her children in an effort to protect them.
“I need them to know that I made the decisions I made to protect them, to be by their side and to get on with my life. Not out of cowardice or guilt,” Shakira wrote in a letter published by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
In this writing, Gerard Piqué’s ex-wife explains: “From the beginning I knew that the artificial story of the (Spanish) Tax Agency confused and manipulated two completely different intentions: one was the desire to establish oneself in a country and another, very different one, the desire for a relationship that was developing in that country to prosper. They exchanged one for the other to make me a tax resident since 2011 and create obligations that did not exist.”
Shakira explains that when her relationship with Piqué started, she visited Spain because obviously, since they were dating, she wanted to visit him and build a relationship little by little. But she came to visit, not with the intention of moving together forever, because obviously, they were just starting out.
Whenever he returned, he did so to make that relationship prosper, not because of a ‘vocation for permanence’,”
Shakira takes the opportunity to criticize the system, claiming that the whole issue has a sexist connotation: “If the singer had been an American man, had fallen in love with a Spanish woman and had visited her regularly, I find it hard to believe that the Tax Agency would have considered that he had any intention of settling down.”
After their separation and reaching an agreement with the Treasury, Shakira left Spain and currently lives in Miami. But above all, she remembers the process she had to go through regarding this issue: “I always fulfilled my obligations. My finances were investigated by institutions as little suspicious as the White House or the IRS (US Internal Revenue Service) and approved by other countries of the European Union, and in all that time they never found even the slightest sign of illegality.”
The EFE news agency also echoed this publication, pointing out that the interpreter affirms that the Tax Agency “does not try to punish those who do not comply, but to show hunting trophies to rebuild a credibility that is in question,” and insists that the Spanish State kept a sum greater than its profits for a decade.
Shakira says that with this writing she shares her truth and says: “In this little article there is more truth about me than in everything that was published in 2023.”
Continue reading more from Shakira here:
· Shakira revealed the details of her legal issue in Spain
· VIDEO: Shakira uses AI to remember and “embrace” her past
· Erard Piqué and Clara Chía enjoy a luxurious holiday in Greece