According to the site below. that’s not true. 68.7% of tax fraud convictions involve jail time, with the median time being 16 months, which is already a reduction from the guideline minimums.
Sentencing is affected by prior behaviour. Is this a one-off thing, or has it happened before? Hunter evaded taxes in 2016 through 2019. Sentencing also depends on prior criminal behavior, and Hunter also has a felony gun charge and has a documented history of illegal drug use. The large majority of people caught with tax evasion have no prior criminal history.
In addition, sentences are increased in the following cases:
Not sure about obstruction of justice, but Hunter ticks all the other boxes. And the money involved is much greater than the average case, which is $339,000. Hunter evaded at least 1.4 million in tax over four years, and the amount matters to sentencing.
As a reminder, Hunter has been charged with three felonies and six misdemeanors. The idea that this would not lead to jail time for anyone else is a DNC talking point they pretty much invented and I’m seeing it repeated uncritically everywhere.
He’s been charged with failing to pay tax, filing a false tax return, and evasion of assessment. It wasn’t a one-off mistake, he did it four times in a row. And he lived a lavish lifestyle during that time, so he can’t ask for leniency becxause of financial hardship. That should not translate into a non-jail outcome.
The kind of person who doesn’t get a jail sentence would be someone who just didn’t report some income and claim they forgot or missed an entry or fat-fingered it or something like that,. then paid up when caught. Someone caught with a side hustle earning them a few thousand extra per year that they don’t report might be a good example. But when inspectors find a complex series of bank accounts designd to hide thesource of money, and someone has received millions of dollars that way and failed to report it, it’s gonna be jail time.
If Hunter doesn’t go to jail THAT will be the special treatment. Not the other way around.