Shakira denies tax evasion allegations: “I’ve paid everything they claimed I owed”
nme.comShakira has responded to the charges of tax evasion that have been levelled against her by the Spanish government.Authorities are seeking an eight-year prison sentence for the singer on the allegation that she made widespread use of shell companies to conceal her income between 2012 and 2014.
Now — in her first response since the claims became public — Shakira has professed her innocence and deemed the charges “fictional.”In a cover story for Elle published yesterday (September 21), the pop star said she’d paid everything that the government had claimed she owed, revealing that “as of today, I owe zero to them.” Shakira went on to explain her confidence in being transparent about her earnings, since she “was advised by one of the four biggest tax specialist firms in the world, PricewaterhouseCoopers.”Shakira later claimed that the allegations — which she deemed “false” and “without evidence” — are an attempt by the Spanish government to “to coerce settlement agreements” via “a salacious press campaign” and the “the threat of reputational damage.” The singer also described such claims as commonplace among her country’s tax authorities, saying that “it’s just their style.”“It is well known that the Spanish tax authorities do this often not only with celebrities like me, it also happens unjustly to the regular taxpayer,” she said, “It’s just their style.
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