Shakira could reportedly face jail or be forced to pay back several millions from her earnings after being targeted in a Spanish tax evasion inquiry. Photo / Getty Images
Shakira could reportedly face jail or be forced to pay back several millions from her earnings after being targeted in a Spanish tax evasion inquiry. Photo / Getty Images
Colombian singer Shakira has reportedly been accused of tax evasion and could even face jail.
Spanish tax authorities have asked prosecutors to look into the 40-year-old's financial affairs over the four years between 2011 and 2014 after claiming she could have evaded paying the proper taxes, according to the href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5298559/Shakira-subject-tax-evasion-enquiry.html?ito=social-facebook" target="_blank">Daily Mail.
Spain's Tax Agency has argued Shakira was living in Spain during that period and therefore should have paid income tax on her worldwide earnings and not just earnings obtained in Spain, respected Catalan daily La Vanguardia reported.
State prosecution chiefs will now have to determine whether they agree with the Tax Agency - and if so, launch formal legal proceedings.
Sources close to Shakira, who became a full tax resident in Spain in 2015, told La Vanguardia she had always met her tax obligations and was ready to abide by the "economic consequences" of what they considered could be simple differences in "evaluation criteria" rather than a deliberate attempt to evade taxes.
The Catalan paper reported Spanish prosecutors could go after Shakira for "several dozen million euros" if they agreed with the tax authorities' take on the situation and could even demand a possible prison sentence.
The singer's tax experts are expected to insist she was in Spain less than 183 days for the years in question - and so was not required to pay wealth tax on her worldwide assets as well as her earnings in Spain.
Shakira was named in the recent Paradise Papers scandal after it was revealed late last year she transferred £30million (NZ$57.2m) in musical rights to an offshore firm in Malta.
Her lawyer Ezequiel Camerini told Spanish news website El Confidencial the singer lived in Barcelona - but quoted him as justifying her links to a tax haven on the basis that "as an international artist, she had lived in several places in the course of her professional life, acting in total accordance with the laws of all the jurisdictions she resides in."
Shakira, full name Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, separated from Antonio de la Rua, son of a former Argentinian president, in August 2010 before starting a relationship with Barcelona footballer Gerard Pique in 2011.
They have two children Milan, who turned five on Monday, and Sasha, who will turn four at the end of January.
MailOnline has contacted a spokesperson for Shakira for comment.
