Grammy-winning Colombian singer Shakira was charged with tax evasion on Friday by Spanish prosecutors alleging that the artist failed to pay more than $16 million in taxes between 2012 and 2014, according to the Associated Press.

The charges come after a year-long investigation into the singer’s taxes, focusing on the three years before she officially moved to Barcelona in 2015.

The tax evasion charges claim that Shakira reported her official residence as the Bahamas — where there is a lower tax rate than Spain’s — when in reality the pop star was spending more than half the year living in Spain with her partner, Spanish soccer player Gerard Piqué. They have two children together, one of whom was born in 2013.

While the charges were only filed Friday, the tax evasion cloud has been looming for some time.


In November 2017, Shakira was one of the individuals revealed in the so-called Paradise Papers as having offshore tax arrangements, including having relocated her intellectual property rights to a Malta-based company. Malta is a reputed tax haven for the wealthy.

Spanish newspaper El País reported that charges against the artist were imminent after the Spanish Tax Agency investigation came to a close last week.

Representatives for Shakira did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment Friday morning.

libby.hill@latimes.com


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