S Poddar
Singer Shakira has heavily criticized Spain, accusing the country of trying to “burn her at the stake” in a tax case she says is both racist and sexist. This superstar from Colombia had been found guilty of a tax difference of €14.5 million for the years 2012 to 2014 and received heavy legal sentences. While Shakira reached a settlement with the prosecutors in Barcelona last year that had come up with a fine of €7.3 million, she has voiced very strong opposition publicly over the handling of this case.
The singer had actually paid € 438,000 above the sum she had first paid in a bid to avoid a three-year suspended prison sentence. At the time she entered the guilty plea, she had said her decision was made more for personal reasons rather than legal ones. Shakira’s legal team insisted the sums she had paid were not money she owed.
The argument revolved around the claim of the tax authority that Shakira had spent more than half of each year in Spain during that period and, therefore, owed Spanish income tax. Shakira denies that, however, claiming that the Spanish tax authority manipulated her situation, building a case to create obligations that never existed.
In the letter to El Mundo this week, Shakira accused the Spanish tax authorities of acting on the basis of sexism and racism. She declared that they created some fanciful story about her tax status and used her high-profile status as the scapegoat to distract society from their own shortcomings. According to Shakira, the institution decided to use all of its powers to unjustly criminalize her.
The crux of the dispute centred on whether Shakira was resident in Spain during the relevant period. She was then in a high-profile relationship with Gerard Piqué, the former Barcelona and Spain footballer and father of her two children. Shakira admitted she had spent time in Spain, but maintained that it could not be proved she resided there for more than six months in any one year.
She called her life style at that time “nomadic” spent traveling to different concert tours and visiting Barcelona only seldomly to see Pique. Shakira insisted she became a resident of Spain only in 2015 and from that year on had started paying taxes. She pronounced that she had agreed with the plea bargain in order not to harm her children and not because she felt guilty or weak.
The critique by Shakira goes beyond her case to the general handling of the case by the tax authorities while dealing with high-profile cases. She even wondered whether another story of an American man in a similar relationship would have come out so strong.
On a public plane, Shakira has tried to make people aware of a prejudiced and flawed legal process she believes could vindicate her case being pursued by prejUDICIAL interests than unbiased ones.
