Snipes, famous for his tax protest stance and “Blade” franchise, paying the price

By Jeffrey Mitchell

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 4/25/08 – The Beatles said “Tax man don’t take it all” and the IRS wanted $18.5 million for back taxes from action star and tax protester Wesley Snipes. After a trial over these affairs, they are now taking three years of freedom and trying to send him to prison, pending his expected appeal.

On Thursday, he was sentenced to the maximum three-year sentence for not filing tax returns.

But judging by the sentence, his pleas for leniency – and the thirty-odd character references from such Hollywood luminaries as Woody Harrelson and Denzel Washington (‘Wesley is like a tree – a mighty oak’, the latter rather curiously suggested) – have clearly fallen on deaf ears. Snipes’ lawyers are complaining that it’s unfair for the courts to make an example of him just because he’s famous (‘Mr. Snipes was sentenced because he’s Mr. Snipes,’ one said, which seems unarguable on a number of levels), but that’s obviously the plan here.

Prosecutors had requested the sentence, one year for each of Snipes’s convictions, saying the star of Blade 3 and Demolition Man had “engaged a campaign of criminal tax conduct, combining brazen defiance with insidious concealment”, telling the US District Court in Florida he failed to pay at least $2.7 million in taxes that year.

Snipes, 45, offered fellow actors Woody Harrelson and Oscar winner Denzel Washington, attesting to his good character.

Snipes’ lawyers had argued he should get only probation, because all three convictions were misdemeanours and the actor has no previous criminal record.

It appears that its a matter of where and when, pending appeals, and whether it’s ‘Hard Time’ or ‘Club Fed’ for Snipes

Believe it or not, this ‘tax denial’ idea is quite a popular movement in the US. Its proponents say that they’re not technically required to pay income tax on domestic earnings, basing their argument on some dubious interpretations of old court rulings and constitutional amendments (since rejected by the courts). Snipes appears to have fallen hook, line and sinker for this idea when it was peddled to him by his tax advisers, and has since been engaged in a long-running battle with the IRS.

However, the prospect of being banged up seems to have induced a moment of clarity. Snipes has been apologetic throughout the trial, describing himself as ‘unschooled in the science of law and finance… well-intentioned, but miseducated’, and suggesting he had been hoodwinked by advisers (who are also going to jail). He even got his lawyers to try and hand over cheques totalling $5m to the judge during the trial, but got short shrift.