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<p>[Prosecutor</a> seeks 3 years in prison for Wesley Snipes](<a href=“Breitbart News Network”>Breitbart News Network)</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see if he actually gets the maximum in the Big House.</p>
<p>For three misdemeanors…sheesh…wonder what he’d get for a DUI. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Isn’t a DUI a misdemeanor too? I thought that the first three DUI’s were anyway.</p>
<p>It’s online gambling that is a * felony*</p>
<p>Yeah, better to put this non-violent black man in prison on a misdemeanor conviction, so he can add to the “black men in prison” statistic. Don’t allow him to return to a career earning a Hollywood Headliner’s salary, and actually begin paying taxes for a change. Yeah, much better to stiff tax payers to the tune of 100,000 dollars per year to keep him caged for five years.</p>
<p>But having said all that—what an idiot! I mean, come on, Wesley…! High profile black men who neglect to pay their taxes are probably the biggest target out here. Stupid, stupid, stupid!</p>
<p>Hard to follow your post, Poet. Is that a bad or good thing for Snipe ? Is that a bad or good thing for the public ?</p>
<p>I expect he was sentenced for being stupid.
THis is good thing for Snipes, because apparently he needed to be shown that the laws of stupidity apply to all, but a bad thing for society because they aren’t evenly applied.</p>
<p>SO he filed false tax returns and didn’t file any for six years- when did he stop filing accurate returns?</p>
<p>I doubt he’ll be in prison for 3 years for this regardless of his sentence. I doubt he’ll spend much time, if any, in prison.</p>
<p>There needs to be some penalty though for purposely failing to pay taxes. If he didn’t want to pay taxes here he always had the option of moving to and working in some other country. </p>
<p>Since the crime is depriving the country of its due taxes however, and since it seems that he has a fair amount of resources behind him (but maybe he doesn’t), it seems that the country would probably be better served with him paying the back taxes with interest, paying a hefty fine so he thinks twice about doing it again in the future and to deter some others considering the same crime, and to pay taxes from now on - especially knowing he’ll be (at least should be) under a very close audit scrutiny from now on.</p>
<p>I was being sarcastic, Edvest. I think the government would be best served by fining him heavily and placing him on probation, thereby allowing him to still work as an actor, making potential block busters. Then they can exact so much in taxes and penalties, he’ll rue the day he ever decided the rules don’t apply to him. If the point is to have people pay their fair share and be contributing members of society, I fail to see how spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep him locked up in an overcrowded prison system makes much sense, especially since his crimes are classified as misdemeanors.</p>
<p>I wonder if Bush will pardon Snipes like he did Libby?</p>
<p>poetsheart: This is a tough one because of compositional questions. That is, does making an example of Snipes gain the country more in potentially cowed tax evaders than it loses in his 3 years of income + jail + court costs? That is the calculation to be made; I have no idea whether or not it costs less or more, but that’s why I don’t think this is clear cut.</p>
<p>Hundreds of thousands spent to punish a man for a misdemeanor, and “set an example”…uhmmmm…No.</p>
<p>I dont know about the jail time but yeah, he should pay all his back taxes + interest + big, big penalty.</p>
<p>He is lucky that he was acquitted of the felony charges. I guess the jury believed that he was really stupid rather than devious.</p>
<p>“If he didn’t want to pay taxes here he always had the option of moving to and working in some other country”</p>
<p>Not true. US citizens and residents must report their worldwide income and pay taxes on anything over the Foreign Earned Income exclusion.</p>
<p>^^ I’m saying move - as in permanently.</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter. Permanently or not. Unless you renounce your citizenship (and even then, they make it difficult) you are subject to your taxation on your world wide income for life.</p>
<p>Well, I can tell you for a fact that in at least one California county, if a mom getting food stamps works a shift at McDonalds and doesn’t report it to the agency, she will be prosecuted and she will be convicted of two felonies, and she will spend 30 days in jail in addition to paying back the extra food stamps she got plus interest and penalties and then spend two years on probation.</p>
<p>It’s the easiest crime in the world to prosecute, because the moms have to sign a form every two weeks to get the food stamps, and the form has a line that says it’s signed “under penalty of perjury.” Since the women always work under their own names and SSN’s, they’re always caught, and prosecuted for both theft (of food stamps) and perjury - as felonies. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.</p>
<p>Considering that Snipes tried to ding the rest of us taxpayers for a lot more than the couple hundred bucks at stake for the welfare moms, and with a lot less need to do it, a little time in the slammer wouldn’t be out of line.</p>
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<p>If you move to another country and don’t come back, i.e. you dislike the USA so much that you’re refusing to pay taxes and are willing to leave permanently, then you’ll no longer have to pay. If you decide to move to Uraguay or someplace and never come back, what could ‘they’ do? That was my point.</p>
<p>i think a heavy fine and a short sentence is appropriate. After all Martha Stewart went to jail too. She rather own up her mistake and the same goes for Snipe.</p>
<p>Martha Stewart was convicted of a felony.</p>
<p>So you are saying tax evasion is a lesser crime than insider trading ? Incidently her crime was a friend whispered the company wasn’t doing so well. I imagine most people will act on it and withdraw fund,stocks…whatever in a heart beat.</p>