Spanish court orders tax authorities to return more than $64 million to Shakira

Spanish authorities ordered the Treasury to return more than 55 million euros (over $64 million) to singer Shakira after annulling a penalty corresponding to the 2011 tax year, according to a court document published Monday on the official site of the Spanish judiciary.

The Audiencia Nacional, the court specializing in complex financial matters, ordered in mid-April "the annulment of the liquidation practiced and the consequent refund of the amounts paid as a consequence thereof, plus legal interest," with respect to the 2011 tax year.

The total amount to be reimbursed to the international star will exceed 55 million euros, according to the document.

This includes the income tax (totaling more than 24 million euros), the fine imposed at the time for a "very serious" violation (almost 25 million euros), the wealth tax for 2011 (2.6 million euros) and the fine corresponding to the latter (2.7 million euros). Interest must be added to this sum.

The singer has had several confrontations with the Spanish tax agency, and other tax cases in which she was involved were resolved in 2024.

In that sense, the singer's legal team detailed that "the accusation so clearly lacked logic or factual basis, and the withholding of those funds was such an absolute abuse, that the National Court adopted an exceptional measure: condemning the AEAT in costs. This is a sanction that the judiciary applies only when it appreciates recklessness and an absolute lack of foundation on the part of the tax administration," the legal team said in a statement obtained by HOLA! magazine.

183 days

The center of these conflicts has to do with the tax residency of the artist, who in 2011 began a relationship with then FC Barcelona player Gerard Piqué, but who at the time kept moving around the world due to her career.

Shakira has always claimed that she developed permanently in Barcelona in late 2014, before moving in 2015 her tax residence from the Bahamas to Spain, just before the birth of her second child.

But Spanish tax authorities did not see it the same way and accused her of not having paid her taxes in Spain in 2012, 2013 and 2014, despite having resided in the country for more than 183 days each of those years, the threshold at which a person is considered a tax resident.

"The administration has not demonstrated that the claimant stayed in Spain ... more than 183 days," reads the April 15 resolution, which specifies that "it doesn't matter whether the Bahamas was a tax haven in 2011 or not."