Celebrities with tax troubles

Celebrities don’t like to pay taxes anymore than the rest of us do. And just like us, they have to pay up when they get caught trying to keep money out of the taxman’s hands.

Nicholas Cage is appealing the IRS’s refusal to allow a business he owns to take a $3.3 million tax deduction for his personal expenses. Cage’s suit in tax court comes at the heels of the acquittal of Wesley Snipes of the most serious charges against him. Snipes was charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and filing a false claim for a $7 million refund. Snipes was also charged with failing to file tax returns for the six years starting in 1999.

Country singer Willie Nelson lost his house and numerous other possessions in 1991 after the IRS claimed he owed more than $16 million in back taxes. Nelson was involved with a bogus tax shelter which the singer said promised to yield him $10 in deductions for every dollar he invested. Unfortunately, the IRS wasn’t buying. The agency seized the singer’s possessions, including a host of unpublished songs. Eventually, Nelson worked out a deal in which he agreed to sign over the royalties of an album made from the songs the taxman seized. The title of the opus: “Who’ll Buy My Memories? (The IRS Tapes).”

The FBI tried for years to put away mobster Al Capone, but it took the IRS to make a case against Capone that would stick. Capone was indicted for income tax evasion for the years 1925-1929. He was also charged with failing to file tax returns in 1928 and 1929. Capone did not go down without a fight. First, he tried to cut a deal, but the judge hearing the case wouldn’t permit it. When that didn’t work, the racketeer tried to bribe the jury. Foiled again. Capone served seven years, six months and 15 days.

Hotelier Leona Helmsley was already known as the Queen of Mean when she boasted that “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” The IRS thought differently. Helmsley went to jail for four years for claiming more than $2.6 million in phony business expenses.

• Joe Francis, of “Girls Gone Wild” fame, was indicted last year for allegedly deducting more than $20 million in false business expenses. He’s now out on bond pending trial.
• Chuck Berry served four months in jail after pleading guilty to tax evasion in 1979.
• Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were charged for back taxes and forced to sell their homes and most of their assets, including their film rights in 1956.
• Richard Pryor served 10 days in jail for tax evasion in 1974 after telling the judge he forgot to pay his taxes, which given Pryor’s predilection for cocaine, may well have been the case .
• Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss was sentenced to three years in jail for conspiracy, income tax evasion and money laundering.
• Andre Agassi had to pay £27,500 pounds to the UK’s Revenue office, which claimed he owed extra taxes for the 1998/1999 tax year.
• Boris Becker got a two-year suspended sentence in Germany for evading £1.2 million pounds in taxes in the early 1990s.
• Marc Anthony allegedly failed to pay taxes for four years in a row, thus depriving the treasury of $2.5 million. Mr. Jennifer Lopez said he was shocked, shocked about the omission and settled with the IRS.
• Martha Stewart had to pay $220,000 in back taxes and fines to New York state after a judge denied her claim that she didn’t spend enough time in the state to have to pay taxes there.
• Luciano Pavarotti faced tax evasion charges in 1999 and 2001. He had to pay the Italian governemtn $11 million as a result of the first case, but was acquitted in the second.
• Darryl Strawberry was indicted in 1994 on tax evasion charges for failing for failing to report income he received selling his autograph. Strawberry was ordered to pay back $350,000 in back taxes and sentenced to six months of house arrest.
• Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time leader in hits, was sentenced to five months in jail, a $50,000 fine and 1,000 hours of community service in 1990 for evading taxes.
• Richard Hatch, the $1 million winner of “Survivor’s” first season, was found guilty of failing to pay taxes on his winnings and is now in jail.
• Ronald Isley, of the R&B group the Isley Brothers, got a 37-month sentence on five counts of tax evasion and one count of willful failure to file a tax return. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer recently lost an appeal of his case.
• Sophia Loren spent 18 days in an Italian prison for tax evasion.
• Seventy percent of Will Smith’s income was garnished by the IRS until he paid back the $2.8 million the government said he owed on his earnings from the show, “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”