Wesley Snipes Aquitted Of Felony Tax Fraud And Conspiracy
Wesley Snipes is one lucky guy. He’s officially the “O.J. Simpson” of white collar crimes. While he was found guilty of three misdemeanor counts of failing to file tax returns or pay taxes, he was found not guilty on the felony charges of tax fraud and conspiracy to commit tax fraud.
Snipes failed to pay taxes on $58 million dollars he and his film company earned between 1999-2004. Since 1986, Wesley Snipes has appeared in more than 50 films earning him at least $103 million dollars.
His attorney’s argued that it wasn’t his fault because he was simply acting on bad advice from crooked accountants. Mr. Snipes joined the tax denier movement after becoming upset when told that his 1999 income tax would be more than $2 million dollars.
A mutual acquaintance introduced Mr. Snipes to one of his co-defendants, Mr. Kahn. Mr. Kahn operated a Christian ministry, the Guiding Light of God Ministries, and a central Florida company called the American Rights Litigators that sold “nonenforcement pocket commissions” and other papers that were supposed to legally stop I.R.S. agents from collecting taxes.
Employees of the ministry and the company used fake names and were paid in cash, the court was told . One former employee testified that she came to realize Mr. Kahn (pronounced kane) was not a tax expert, but a scam artist.
After Mr. Kahn held a seminar in Mr. Snipes’s California home, the actor told associates that he would no longer pay taxes and would no longer withhold taxes from paychecks of his Amen Ra Films employees, whom he barred from paying taxes.
Ms. Baker, Mr. Snipes’s former assistant, testified that when she expressed doubt about Mr. Kahn’s claims, her job was threatened, she was sent out of the room and her notes and copies of Mr. Kahn’s literature were confiscated.
From 1998 through 2003, Mr. Kahn charged more than 2,000 clients up to $1,550 each to file bogus misconduct complaints against I.R.S. agents, part of what the Justice Department said in another case was a scheme to hobble tax law enforcement.
While unlikely, it’s at least believable that he was acting on bad advice but one piece of evidence in particular casts doubt on that excuse.
Prosecutors argued that Mr. Snipes showed criminal intent when he sent the government three bogus checks to pay $14 million in taxes and an amended tax return that was subtly altered with software to state that he filed under “no” penalty of perjury.
It’s one thing to simply not pay taxes, but sending the government fake checks is a serious crime. How is a jury going to believe that Snipes was advised to send the government bogus checks so he went ahead and did it?
Snipes also sent the government a series of rambling letters explaining his nutty theories about why he doesn’t have to pay taxes.
After his indictment, however, Mr. Snipes sent the government a series of rambling letters describing his tax theories and warning that “pursuit of such a high-profile target will open the door to your increased collateral risk.”
Robert E. O’Neill, the United States attorney prosecuting the case, called the filings “gibberish” whose sole purpose was to thwart law enforcement.
In one 600-page document, Mr. Snipes said he was legally a “nontaxpayer” and the tax laws did not apply to him because he was not a resident of the District of Columbia, was not a federal official and was not engaged in any trade or business, all common tax denier arguments.
Mr. Snipes also complained that the I.R.S. violated his 14th Amendment rights to equal protection because it would not help him establish what he said was his rightful status as a legal nontaxpayer.
It’s obvious that Snipes just didn’t want to pay taxes like everybody else. He took the advice from those crooks, because their explanations fit with what he wanted to hear. Furthermore, he sent the IRS bogus checks to pay for the taxes he did owe, and he made fraudulent rebate filings as well.
It would have really made me angry to be on that jury. I would have found him guilty on all counts. I have no love for the IRS or the government AKA “the man,” but for snipes to cry about paying $2 million in taxes on when he’s earned more than $100 million dollars over the years is outrageous.
Nobody likes to pay taxes, but to be a multi-millionaire and refuse to pay your share like every other citizen is just plain wrong. The bottom line is that Wesley Snipes is a greedy bastard who should have been found guilty of everything and sent to prison.
He could face up to three years in prison for the misdemeanors he was found guilty of, but this is California we’re talking about so it’s doubtful that he’ll actually do any time.
-Chris Jones
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WHAT IF….
We ALL got away with it. The government dropped the ball… we need to run with it!
Let’s pressure congress to abolish the 16th Ammendment that was never ratified.
Justices of the Supreme Court affirm that Congress never created a Bureau of Internal Revenue or Internal Revenue Service. Consequently, the IRS has no lawful authority to enforce anything in the Union as Congress is charged with responsibility for establishing any government department or agency that the Constitution itself does not establish.
Farmers in the 1960’s never paid income tax; because it was optional.
Let’s quit calling the rich names for getting away with it, and start RUNNING with it, ourselves! Use the same sources and we can benefit, too.
BTW, if Ron Paul is serious about doing away with the IRS because it’s illegal, WE may have been the fools all this time!
if the small man is paying tax why should the big one run away with it?!