I don’t see the point in this. Put his ass in a film, garnish the million dollar paycheck. Put him in another film, garnish etc. Eventually the IRS gets their money and penalties.
Whats he going to do in prison? Make license plates for 50 cents an hour? His career will be washed up and forgotten when he gets out. It seems asinine to fund his retirement in prison with our taxes. He’ll never get the money paid back without a career.
Lots of celebrities wind up in trouble with the IRS. The bastards seized everything Willie Nelson owned except his guitar. Eventually Willie got every cent paid. He worked his ass off, toured non-stop for years and released new albums.
I much rather see Snipes working than sitting on his ass in prison.
I know Willie Nelson claims bad financial advice got him into tax trouble.
I wonder what Snipes did to piss off the IRS like this? Usually the bloodsuckers prefer getting the money and penalties over prison.
The point is that he refused to pay taxes. He didn’t underestimate his income or forget to file, he claimed he didn’t have to pay. The government want to discourage this for obvious reasons.
From reading a little about the case, I think the big problem is that the IRS doesn’t have much of an idea how much Mr Snipes owes them. What returns he has made have been found to be criminally fraudulent, and there are many years for which he has not submitted returns. Clearly the IRS would like the money, but they have probably given up on any kind of compliance from Mr Snipes.
That’s the thing most folks don’t realize: the IRS, generally, will work with the average person who just fucked their shit up— but if your case somehow gets flagged as a tax protester, you’re in a world of hurt.
While none of my tax protester clients (I help people resolve their tax issues) tried to tax protest their way out of quite as much as Mr. Snipes, we do have a few that owe a few million a piece. I have plenty of regular ol’ clients that also owe the IRS a few million bucks, but their cases are FAR easier to deal with than the ones who are tax protesters.
In case you don’t know, what a tax protester does is send a bunch of bullshit paperwork to the government, claiming they don’t legally have to pay taxes for any number of reasons. I have a case sitting on my desk right now for a tax protester who owes less than $100k-- the stack is literally about a food high of bullshit documents he sent to the IRS. Now, you’re the IRS and you have to sort through everything that is sent to you. Some moron sends you all of this tomfoolery and you now have to spend god knows how many man hours sorting through this shit. That’s how you get red flagged.
Every day, I have regular people with tax problems come in crying, thinking that the IRS is going to seize their house and their car and their dog and throw them in prison. The reality is that even while the IRS can do these things, the really don’t. . . unless you’re a tax protester. Tax protesters get the hammer brought down on them.
There’s a world of difference between just not filing/paying your taxes and being an active tax protester.
I guarantee you that the IRS has already completed what are called Substitute For Returns for him.
I know the IRS doesn’t screw around. They scare the crap out of most Americans (including me).
I recall years ago some celebrity got into tax trouble. His celeb buddies did a benefit for him. Raised quite a lot of money. IRS guy shows up and garnishes every penny raised. Almost funny in a twisted sort of way.
I think this is a great moment in the Fight Against Ignorance. I have used Wesley Snipes as an example in a number of discussions about various tax protestor arguments. If he were to be allowed to continue to make movies, even if he were paying the IRS back, it would still look like he might have gotten away with something, since people don’t have a good sense of exactly how much he makes vs. how much he is paying in taxes. But being able to point to a celebrity example and say, “This is where tax protestors end up,” might actually change some minds, and reveal their arguments for the stupidity they are.
“But Officer, my lawyer told me it was ok to go as fast as I wanted, since speed limit laws don’t apply to me because even though I was born here, I’m not a US citizen. In fact officer, the US doesn’t exist! Each STATE is its own sovereign nation, yes, but not the US itself. Oh, you work for the State of California, officer? Well, funny you mention that. . . I’m not a citizen of California because California doesn’t exist. I’m a citizen of the Bear Flag Republic and any laws that have been put in place since 1846 aren’t actually enforceable!”****
There. I used tax protester arguments to argue against another basic law. But hey, if his lawyer told him that, he’ll get out of the ticket, no? That’s the trick about the paperwork he sent the government-- he still had to sign it. And by signing it, he declared that what he was saying was true. Do you think he honestly believed he made zero dollars in one year?
*** This is actually what a good chunk of tax protesters believe.
What million dollar paycheck? Blade: Trinity was a disaster, and since then every other film Snipes has starred in has gone direct to DVD – the kiss of death in Hollywood.
Tax protesters and their fellow travelers, the “Sovereign” citizens are an increasing problem in difficult financial times. I don’t blame the government at all for making and example of Mr.Snipes but I doubt it will do much real good. You can show tax protesters and sovereigns court case after court case where their ideas and “theories” have been shot down in flames and it won’t phase them. They imagine they are fighting some deep dark conspiracy and all the evidence you present them with will only be viewed as proof of how evil the government really is. You can ask them for any proof what so ever that their beliefs work in court and they’ll claim that they work all the time but the government hides all the evidence. Sick circular reasoning at it’s delusional finest.
Quatloos.com runs a forum on many manners of financial fraud but their sections on tax protesters and sovereign citizens are particularly notable both for the caliber of the contributors (many accountants, attorneys and federal employees) but also for the occasional nut jobs who post to defend some of the most ludicrous arguments imaginable. They have a discussion of the Snipes case going back three years including some court documents and docket entries.
I’m laughing my ass off. When you mentioned the stack of ‘tomfoolery’ that gets sent in by tax protesters, I was going to ask, “what kind of tomfoolery”. And there we have it. Pure D. Tomfoolery. Funny as hell.
