World Famous Spanish Opera Star Charged with Tax Evasion

One of Spain’s most famous opera singers, Montserrat Caballé, has been charged with allegedly defrauding the tax office of just over half a million euro in 2010 after a series of concerts that reportedly netted the soprano star around 2 million euro.

 

The 81-year-old singer must appear in court in Barcelona on 9 May and explain her side of events and answer the charges against her of tax evasion.

 

Apparently, the Catalan singer was living in Barcelona at the time and only travelled abroad for work purposes.

During this year, she carried out a series of concerts that took her all across Europe, and which she is said to have earned around 2 million euro from.

This means that she should have paid 508,462 euro to the tax office, but didn’t despite living in Spain.

To make it look as if the star lived in Andorra, and therefore paid her taxes in that principality rather than in Spain, she signed most of the contracts for these concerts abroad through a dummy company apparently based in the neighbouring principality and instructed payment for her work to be deposited into an account there.

It has, however, been alleged that Caballé was residing in her hometown of Barcelona all along.

The star has been accused of trying to dupe the Spanish authorities about her actual earnings and place of residence for the sole purpose of not paying tax.

So far, the opera singer, who is most famous for her “Barcelona” duet with Freddie Mercury in 1992, has refrained from making any comment about the claims.

The prosecution has called for an embargo to be placed on Caballé’s assets to the tune of the half a million euro owed to the tax office.

Source: www.elconfidencial.com, www.bbc.com