Taxable Talk

You remember Wesley Snipes, actor and alleged tax cheat? Mr. Snipes is accused of amended a tax return to get back all of his taxes because he bought into the idea that only foreign income is taxable. (Hint: All income is taxable, unless Congress says otherwise.)

Snipes, who will soon be tried in Ocala, Florida, has now played the race card. As the Smoking Gun noted, his Caucasian co-conspirators haven't been charged (yet). So he's asking for his case to be dismissed. Snipes also alleges that he is the victim; that he succumbed to bad tax advice. On that, he's right. However, by following the bad advice, and then by allegedly failing to withdraw his amended return claiming a $7.4 million tax refund, he stepped into the line of fire and has been charged with making a false claim for refund.

There's only one huge problem with this motion: the promoters of Snipes scheme are in prison, as Joe Kristan noted this morning. If you go to the link, you'll see that Joe quotes Quatloos.com and notes that Eddie Kahn, one of the promoters, "...represents the Hee-Haw contingent of the tax protestor movement...Eddie caters to the dumbest of the dumb, and his theories for not paying taxes are thus the dumbest of the dumb. Eddie has claimed variously that he can’t find the Form 1040, that the IRS was not created by Congress and apparently just materialized out of the blue, that the IRS doesn’t have the power to collect taxes, that the United States doesn’t actually include the states...." Let's just say that if you bring up any of those arguments, you will be laughed out of court. Of course, every so often this kind of defense works....

It should be a fun summer for tax bloggers if Mr. Snipes continues down this path (but it may be a very long summer for Mr. Snipes).