- By Antoinette Radford
- BBC News
September 26, 2023, 4:54 p.m. BST
Updated 1 hour ago
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Shakira won the lifetime achievement award at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this month
Colombian pop star Shakira has been charged with tax evasion by the Spanish government for the second time.
Prosecutors in Spain accuse the singer of defrauding the state of 6.7 million euros ($7.1 million, £5.8 million) in 2018.
This is said to have happened when, among other things, she failed to declare millions of dollars in advance payments for her “El Dorado World Tour.”
Spanish prosecutors opened the second investigation in July 2023 but published the details on Tuesday.
Spanish broadcaster RTVE says the 46-year-old singer is aware of the new charges, but Portal news agency reports that Shakira’s legal team in Miami – where she now lives – has not yet been informed.
Instead, they are “focused on preparing the fiscal year 2012-14 process, which will begin on November 20,” they told Portal in a statement.
The new charges are based on the fact that Shakira lived in Barcelona with soccer star Gerard Pique in 2018 and therefore had to pay tax on all of her international income there.
They argue that she instead funneled her money to “companies based in countries with low taxation and high levels of opacity.”
In that case, she was accused of failing to pay 14.5 million euros ($15.3 million, £12.6 million) in taxes between 2012 and 2014, but she has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
“I am confident that I have enough evidence to support my case and that justice will prevail in my favor,” she said in an interview with the Spanish edition of Elle magazine in September.