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Waka Waka: Shakira faces tax probe in Spain

Shakira is facing a tax evasion probe by Spain’s inland revenue over earnings she failed to declare when she first became resident in Spain.

Published: 23 January 2018 10:42 CET

Waka Waka: Shakira faces tax probe in Spain

Shakira has an estimated worth of close to €200million. Photo: AFP

Spain’s tax office has asked prosecutors to open a case which could lead to a tax bill of tens of millions of euros, according to Spanish media reports.

The investigation centres on allegations that she failed to declare global earnings between 2011 and 2014 when they argue that she was resident in Spain for tax purposes..

Sources close to the singer claim that she has always met tax obligations and only became a permanent resident in Spain in 2015.

The Colombian popstar lives in Barcelona with her partner Barça footballer Gerard Piqué and their two sons. She alone has an estimated fortune of close to €200million.

Happy 2018!

A post shared by Gerard Piqué (@3gerardpique) on Dec 31, 2017 at 3:19pm PST

Sources close to the pop star deny that there was any tax evasion and say Shakira was outside Spain most of the time between 2011-2014 and has always complied with her tax obligations.

She is the latest in a string of high profile personalities, many from the football world, who have been targeted by Spain’s tax authorities.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Luca Modric are among those who have been accused of tax fraud.

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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