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Snipes?s ?Kooky? Views on Taxes Head to Florida Jury

By Ashby Jones

“Nobody likes paying taxes, but paying taxes is the price we pay to live in a civilized society. And it’s the law, and that’s what this case is about. It’s about three men who felt they were above the law.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney M. Scotland Morris

“Disagreement with the IRS is not fraud of the IRS, is not deception. It was an attempt to engage the IRS, to go through the IRS procedures and processes and see who’s right.”

Robert Barnes, attorney for Wesley Snipes

Neither we, nor Hollywood screenwriters, could have summed up the Wesley Snipes tax-fraud case any better. The Ocala, Fla., trial wrapped up yesterday and Snipes’s fate is now in the hand of a jury. Snipes, of “White Men Can’t Jump” and “The Fan” fame, could be sentenced to 16 years in prison if the jury returns a guilty verdict. Here are stories from the AP and the NYT’s David Cay Johnston, who calls the case the “the most prominent tax prosecution in nearly two decades.” Click here here and here for earlier posts on Snipes’s tax predicament.

The issue for the Snipes jury boils down to this: Even if the “Money Train” star, did, in fact, owe tens of millions of dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties, did he in fact try to defraud the government? According to the NYT, defense lawyers used the words “kooky,” “crazy” and “dead wrong” to describe Snipes’s views on taxes. But they insisted that he had not broken any laws and should be acquitted of fraud.

High up on the Kooky-meter: a 600-page document Snipes sent to the I.R.S. in which he called himself a “nontaxpayer” and asked why the I.R.S. would not help him and others “in not complying with laws they clearly are not subject to.”

Robert E. O’Neill, the United States attorney for central Florida, said that the “Murder at 1600″ star simply wanted to avoid paying taxes, calling his submission to the I.R.S. “gibberish.”

Law Blog YouTube Video of the Day: Possibly the greatest (read: hokiest) trailer in Hollywood history comes courtesy of Snipes’s 1992 flick, “Passenger 57.” Click here and enjoy. (Make sure you listen all the way through to the trumpet at the end.)

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 30, 2008 (boomark / email).