Craaaaaaaaziness.
Wesley Snipes was sentenced to THREE YEARS in a federal prison on Thursday for three misdemeanor counts of failing to file tax returns.
“Snipes’ long prison sentence should send a loud and crystal clear message to all tax defiers that if they engage in similar tax defier conduct, they face joining him,” said Assistant Attorney General Nathan J. Hochman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.
Wow. They just totally made an example of him. It’s like Martha Stewart all over again.
Snipes showed little reaction; he just said “Wow” to the crowd as he left the courtroom.
Denzel Washington and Woody Harrelson, as well as television judges Joe Brown and Greg Mathis, submitted letters to the judge on Snipes’ behalf. In his letter, Washington said Snipes was “like a tree — a mighty oak … Many who know him have witnessed the fruit of his labors, have sat in his shade and even been protected by his presence. I am proud of him, proud to call him a fellow thespian and most importantly, proud to call him a friend.”
Hooooooooly shit. How is it that Nicole Richie serves 82 minutes in jail for her SECOND DUI, and Wesley Snipes gets THREE FUCKING YEARS for tax evasion.
Do NOT fuck with the IRS, people.
I fuckin hate the IRS, it’s unconstitutional. The saddest part of all is that there is not even a law that requires us to pay income taxes, yet we still put up with this shit. We have been lied to for decades.
your right the tax law was never ratified , crazy friggen world
That’s crazy! Didn’t he owe like 2 million dollars to the IRS? Does the crazy sentence have to do with the huge amount of money he owed, or is 3 years a standard sentence for tax evasion regardless?
It sucks to be him right now. I read that he owed like 10mil but of course the IRS will rack up late fees and other charges. He might wind up paying like 20mil. They said he already paid 5mil of his bill. Where’s my rebate check IRS?
If he had killed someone, he wouldn’t get such a long sentence.
Wait.
If he bombed a whole country, well, he wouldn’t get slammer time at all!
Meh… he knew what he was doing. And just because he’s famous doesn’t make him any less accountable for his disregard for rules. Just my thoughts…
What kind of a world do we live in when a man like OJ Simpson can practically saw his ex-wife’s head off and kill another man and get away with it, while another man evades some fucking taxes and is sentenced to 3 years in prison? I would go Blade on their asses if I were Wesley, suck the blood right out of the IRS,just like they suck the life’s blood out of us. Prison might not be far off for many of us if this is the case!
snap.
Richard Hatch (Survivor guy who thought they wouldn’t notice that $1 million he got paid) got 51 months plus three years probation, so this shouldn’t be all that shocking. $5 million will, inter alia, pay for 2.6 million free school lunches, 1268 years of veteran’s healthcare benefits, or a third of a million full-course malaria immunizations for folks in need.
I can’t speak to the details of this case, but I would like to point out that DOJ Tax is who you should be afraid of folks, not the Service. DOJ Tax, especially criminal (and the super-geniuses at CATEPS), is full of attorneys who could easily be making three times the salary elsewhere, but choose to prosecute these kinds of cases largely because the blatant cheats and tax protesters free ride on the backs of law-abiding, tax-paying Americans.
The IRS tends to be a fairly soft touch for regular Joes who just come up a little bit short. See e.g. http://www.slate.com/id/2188983/
Oh man, that’s great~! No one should be above the law!
If you find a federal law requiring Wesley Snipes (or you or me) to pay income tax, please post it. Oh, watch Aaron Russo’s Freedom to Fascism, too.
Note: $5 million pays for approx 35 minutes of the Iraq war.
All of you people who hate taxes, stop driving on the interstates and enjoying the protection of the five branches of our military. It costs money to have a free society with a little bit of order. And I don’t like Bush or the war any more than you do. I’m just saying, nobody gets a free sense of security and civilization in this world. Stop complaining and be glad for your privileges.
Okay then make him pay. No one is arguing that he shouldn’t pay the taxes, it’s the ridiculous jail time that is the problem. Plus, I’m willing to bet that he had an accountant. Most people don’t know anything about taxes. Rich people have accountants to handle these things. Is that person did not do his job then, Wesley should have to pay the money, and the accountant should face the charges because he knows better. And three years, seriously. HE didn’t kill anyone. Our laws are so unjust. The punishment often does not fit the crime.
69-year old Leona Helmsley was convicted of tax evasion in 1989 and served 18 months in a federal prison. No, you do not mess with the IRS.
still love him in “To Wung Foo: Thanks for Everything”
well….3 years is a great deal of time,but
did he really NEED to owe money to the state?
doesn’t he EARN a lot of money ?
didn’t he KNOW this was bound to happen?
I don’t want to compare his sentence to other situations,and I am pretty sure he has people taking care of his financial matters
if those were the ones to screw up,it’s too bad
I like to watch is movies too
I will never ever evade my taxes. Thats fo sho.
hahah lol devil girl…im gonna go blade on a few peoples assess today!
White people HATE THIS but,
But like Snoop, OJ, Diddy etc.
WHITE LAW makers make examples out of ALL black men.
You will NEVER see a custody case go fair when a black man is involved…NEVER!
I have my kids OVER 50% of the time and CA. WHITE Judges make me pay support, WHY pay ANY TAXES to a GOVERnMENT like CA. if all they do is use the LAW in the WHITE MAN’s FAVOR daily.
Im not racist, but seeing this happen and going through this experince makes you question the smartness of white people.
Blame Barack for what his pastor said?? these are “educated white people, stupid ass fuck!!
Hilary was IN a real estate scandal, IS getting donations from muslims who support terriost, lies like her husband, but WHITE people see her as the TRUTH!!
This is some crazy shit we live in, but this is the way WHITE PEOPLE THINK! No facts, it just MAKES sense, stupid.
in the END, Barack would have been the BEST president EVER, that’s is what white people are scared of…..THE BLACK MAN AGAIN PROVING to be not about self and doing the job 200% better, like every other business man, athlete, entertainer and lover, after he would PROVE and show he can be the best president, whites could/would not mentally handle that, how could they mentally???
Love you too
You know they put Martha Stewart away for fucking the state when it came to money right?
You really don’t get much whiter than Martha Stewart. I mean, you’d have to like actively try and buy slaves and shit and enjoy eating plain white bread with some finger foods while commenting on how “cute” ebonics is and how “those people” are “trying to speak english” to get any whiter.
“Im not racist, but seeing this happen and going through this experince makes you question the smartness of white people.”
Hilarious. Please dont question white “smartness”… I would prefer if you didnt question our intelligence either. You are the most racist person on here. They are throwing him jail because he skipped out on his Taxes. You stated OJ simpson as an example for whites unwarranted prosecution of black men. Didnt OJ go free? Make a rap song and stop pretending to have anything above average intelligence.
PS. I am white and pay child support too. There goes your whole fucking case against the WHITE LAW MAN. DIP SHIT!
Oh God…. here we go. I see ignorance has a sleep problem. Wake up on the non-mental side of the bed this time with your head OUT of your ass.
That 100K tax bill for that 5mil dollar movie deal, doesn’t look so bad right about now. Why is he so special, that he can get away with paying taxes that we all have to pay. Put his ass away, on stupidity alone.
In other news, stimulus tax rebates will be out on May 2, 9, & 16th, via direct deposit, for early fillers.
All I’m gonna say is that Snipes knowingly and intentionaly evaded taxes because of an anti-tax movement. I do think that 3 years is a bit harsh for a non-violent offense but the law is the law.
U.S. Code : Title 26 : Section 7201 Read all about it. Don’t like it than sue the Government and go about protesting in currently legal ways. Breaking the law doesn’t prove the point it just puts the power back in there hands.
Just face it- as long as the government has to provide services to its people it has to have money to do it.
“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
If you don’t like how the money is spent, don’t keep electing officials who spend in ways you don’t agree with. The politicians who hold the purse strings are elected by the people. Stop voting based on rhetoric and the opinions of political pundits. Do the research and be an informed voter in all races not just the presidential ones.
200% Truth: Um, actually, some of the things you say DO sound pretty racist… and just goes to show that ignorance knows no bounds when it comes to race, creed, or color.
How is Wesley’s conviction for TAX EVASION using the law in the “white man’s” favor? I would think it has more to do with the fact that he is a high profile individual. Who the hell cares if you or I don’t pay our taxes and we get sent to jail. Most people would say “Pay your taxes, you dumb shit!” When they prosecute someone who is famous, it gets ALOT more media coverage and sets an example.
Besides, how many warnings and chances to pay back taxes do you get?!? He must have just been ignoring them. Just goes to show that effing with the IRS is a Federal offense!
I think you may be getting your issues a little mixed up there, boo.
Starspeckled, at the risk of starting a tax-protester flame war on what’s supposed to be a fun-loving gossip blog, the federal courts of the U.S. have decided that the Internal Revenue Code is indeed a law. See e.g. Ryan v. Bilby, 764 F2d 1325, 1328 (9th Cir. 1985) (“Like it or not, the Internal Revenue Code is the law, and the defendants did not violate Ryan’s rights by enforcing it.†)
It doesn’t matter whether you or I agree with that decision for any number of reasons (you don’t think the 16th Amendment is valid, you think that positive law/codification is somehow relevant, you don’t think the federal government has jurisdiction over people who live it states, etc.), because the right to interpret the constitution and laws of the U.S. belongs to the federal judiciary, not to the citizens, and the federal courts have been very clear that we all do have to pay our federal income taxes. We do not have a legal right to ignore those court decisions because we don’t like them or we happen to think they are mistaken. Shoot, because of collateral bar, we do not have a right to disobey direct court orders even when it turns out they were wrong in the first place.
Further, while I encourage healthy skepticism of what the government says, especially with respect to its own revenues, I also encourage people to examine the credibility of the tax protesters making claims that sound too good to be true. I would take medical advice with a grain of salt if it doesn’t come from a doctor, and I think people would be well served to be skeptical of legal or tax advice that doesn’t come from an attorney, CPA, etc. For example, Irwin Schiff, who I understand was one of the “stars” of FtoF, has been sentenced to some serious jail time for his activities, and during his most recent trial, he filed a brief in which he claimed that he had “a mental disorder” relating to his beliefs about taxes.
“he claimed that he had “a mental disorder†relating to his beliefs about taxes”
I love this allegation
Thank you for posting it!
So will he now be referred to as “Inmate #0057”?
Good for you Wesley….you fucking nut job….so instead of your “global tracking number”…..the “man”….will assign you a whole new number !!
Note that there were two other men (who I believe prepared Wesley Snipes taxes) who were codefendants in this trial. They received 5 – 10 years prison time. Wesley got some bad advice from these guys and he decided to make a point by going to trial and claimed racism. Wesley was found not guilty of the felony charges, but was found guilty of some misdemeanor charges.
He’ll be ok, have you not SEEN Blade?!
Wesley Snipes: 3 yrs for taxes (that could easily be repaid) Lane Garrison: 3yrs for dui murder….Really ?!?!
200% Truth: Snipes, OJ, etc. are all famous people who committed a crime, just as Paris Hilton, Martha Stewart etc. were all famous people who committed a crime. In some of these crimes people were used as an example, but not just black people.
Like Norman already said, you are sounding pretty racist. Not all white people are going to vote for Hilary Clinton, not all white people are stupid.
I’ve known plenty of black people that act like white people owe them something, and I’ve known plenty of black people that live of welfare because they think the government owes them something, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying that all black people are like that.
This is a gossip blog. It’s not the place to be talking politics or acting racist.
this is SUCH bullshit.
they’re giving him that sentence BECAUSE he’s famous, not EVEN THOUGH he’s famous.
they’re making examples of themselves. as pricks.
There seems to be huge discrepancies in the trials and sentencing of celebrities. An example is Paris hilton who instead of not providing the money to drop bombs is driving around drunk and threatening her own life and others. Three years for Wesley and three months for Martha..kind of makes you wonder as to the fairness of the upcoming Election….
Wesley Snipes stance highlighted a discrepancy in the Constitution in that there is a suggestion that in line with individual freedoms and overbearing governments before 1913 and World War there was nothing compelling to pay what are effectively War taxes
The money he withheld is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions stolen by the current US administration, the billions siphoned off to Halliburton for example..isnt ther still 14 billion dollars of oil missing in Iraq…
It does look like he has been made an example in the saem way Nelson Mandela was and tothose ends is a political prisoner. Furthermore if they are locking him away to scare people in to duly filing their tax reports then why didnt they arrest OJ to send out the message that its wrong..to kill people?
In the meantime, if you’re a police officer, you can shoot unarmed men on the street over 50 times and get a trip to DisneyWorld!
That has never happened. Stop being an idiot.
CUZ HE WAS BLACK
You affirmative action idiots just go kill yourselves, black people aren’t niggers, bot you are. moron.
He is a good actor and deserves Oscar award after his each film release. May be, he will be much better actor, after his prison sentence, because an experienced man can acting much better, than a fresh actor in Holywood. After his punishment period, Mr. Wesley Snipes can play in his new film as “Nansen Mandela”.
I request to the film directors in Holywood to give Mr. Wesley Snipes better chances to make millions $$$ (for both parties).
Mr. Wesley Snipes has already entertained us for many years through his several films, now it is our turn to make his time much easier than it is. After all, the justice has decided, what it has to do, but we should not forget it, no body is perfect!!!
hahaah omfg get a holy fucking life, look around you, what is the ONLY crime al coupone was charged. yes, evasion to give those green coupons to serious not talkative at all buddies in corporate suites, simply speaking pay tax. fucking fucked up fucker fuck and 100 another fucks. nvm tho
Helmsley (Leona Rosenthal) Evaded paying Taxes on a 8 Million dollar
home improvement. She was convicted & sentenced to 15 Years in prison but served 4 years ( only 19 months in prison) the rest in house arrest. She died in 2007 & left 12 Million for the trust for the upkeep of the dog ! She left 3 Million for the maintenance of her mausoleum which must be steam cleaned once per year.
Richard Hatch who won the 1Million prize from the ‘Survivor TV series’ Served time in jail too. Try 51 months, a little over 4 years….
Marc Anthony (married to Jennifer Lopez) failed to File taxes & owed the IRS 2.5 M for years 2000 to 2004 . They did not seek jail time on Mr Anthony since he relied on the services of a certified public accountant with whom Marc Anthony had entrusted him to do the taxes.
Spiro Agnew (former Vice President ) plead guilty to Tax evasion and received a 3 year suspended sentence. In addition to resigning from the VP job which he held at the time; as VP to Richard Nixon.
Willie Nelson owed 16.7 Million in back taxes, the IRS did an asset seizure and forfeiture, the didn’t sentence Willie to ANY jail time. Some of Willie Nelson assets were bought by fans who gave them back to Nelson.
Nicholas Cage has been accused by the IRS of having too many business expenses by his production company. Mr Cage is currently fighting the IRS in court.
Sophia Loren served 18 days in Italy for Tax evasion.
Joe Louis ( The brown Bomber boxer) was hounded to his death by the IRS for back taxes he never knew he owed. As a result of other people managing his affairs and money. This is the saddest example of what the US government & IRS can do to a career. Even after Louis served his country & fought for the US army while enlisted.
Martha Stewart (BEFORE the IMCLONE scandal) was sentenced by a judge to pay back taxes in 2002. That was the State of NY taxes she was not sentenced to jail time then.
Dennis Kozlowski (former CEO of TYCO) owed money for 13 Million dollars of Art in Sates Sales taxes. The State of NY isn’t worried about it right now as Dr. K is current in the clink for the next 25 years.
Don KING was ACQUITTED of 29 charges of Tax Evasion and Fraud in
1985. He has visited the clink for other offenses though.
Heidi Fleiss (Ex Madam) convicted in 1997 of tax evasion and sentenced to 3 years of prison.
Abbott & Costello (comedians in the 1950’s)
IRS told them they owed back taxes near the end of their working career which forced both men into bankruptcy and their split up in 1957.
Redd Foxx the IRS seized his stuff in 1983. He remained in the hole & died in 1991. The IRS said he owed 3 million in back taxes, interest and penalties.
Pete Rose 5 months in prison for filing False Tax returns.
Sammy Davis Jr owed 7.5 Million, he wife paid the debt after Sammy died over a period of 7 years.
FUCK the FUCKING IRS! BTW…roads and highways are NOT paid for out of income taxes….they are paid for out of gas FUCKING tax! School lunches and education overall are paid for out of FUCKING property taxes respective to their geographical locations.
There is a GAS/Fucking tax? I fart and fuck a lot… I hope they dont come collect on that.
The bottom line……..rich people don’t like to pay their taxes……and they are in a higher tax bracket than the rest of us. Stop making this just a black and white issue and grow up. I feel sorry for all the people in the U.S. who continue to feel oppressed. This country is fantastic and FULL of opportunity; and Wesley Snipes is proof of that. He went from nothing to something and he is essentially an American success story.
My neighbor said he owed 500,000 and went to the irs with a friend to fix this once and for all and the clerk or clerk type person at the desk gave him all his files and said zero amount due. He said this is because too long had passed with non payment. He also said that all these years they had been trying to collect from him via phone and mail and he never paid anything. Seems strange to me….
I have been in a communist country for 14 years never seen anyone
go to jail for tax evasion. Now who is the communist? No country is so
stupid on taxes like this one. Of course hard working are taxed to death and give billions to countries who don’t give a hell about
this country.
FUCK!!!!! TAXES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lord Lord Lord my People perish For LACK OF KNOWLEDGE-Its really impossible to bring minds forward and remove walls in their minds.
It takes years to understand the GRAND Plan for Humans on this PLANET.
The Federal Reserve is a collection agency for the WORLD BANK??? Not one penny goes to service the tax debt its all interest.
Its physically impossibe to not pay taxes-from the day you are born the child is in debt. You flush in the morning Taxed-you turn on Lights Taxed-you eat breakfast taxed-you drive or ride to work in your car taxed-Buy Gum-yada yada yada??? If you are not required to PAY Federal income Tax Why PAY PAY PAY? Google THE LAW THAT NEVER WAS see if its legal?
if i had that kind of income, there is no way i would stay a resident of this country, and pay that much in taxes.
Previous comment – “No one should be above the law.”
The “law” is made by corrupt murderers like Bush and Obama who use your tax dollars to bomb children in Iraq and Afghanistan. FUCK the “law.”
Fuck Oliver Wendall Holmes too. That man didn’t give two shits about our civil liberties, and I don’t give two shits about his thoughts on taxes.
Taxes are LEGALIZED THEFT. Nothing more. Nothing less.
why isnt secretary geitner in jail the fucking asshole not only evaded but cheated on his taxes wtf wtf