Simply Dumb

To quote from one of Wesley Snipes’ Blade films, “You do not know who you are messing with!” That Wesley, goes double when you mess with the Internal Revenue Service. Despite the passionate pleas of fellow actors who stood up for his character, Snipes drew a sentence of three years in prison Thursday for willfully failing to file tax returns.

Associated Press notes that prosecutors made an example out of Snipes, who threw his lot in with “tax protesters” and tried in vain to claim the government can’t legally tax us. Prosecutors gave him a year for each willful failure to file a tax return. Nice work, Wes.

Really, how hard is it to file taxes? Particularly when you’re a multi-millionaire actor? I would love to have enough money to scratch off a $2-3 million tax check. The government says he made at least $13.8 million for the three-year span in question. Snipes now calls himself “well-intentioned, but miseducated.”

Come on, Willie Mays Hayes. You know you’re supposed to pay taxes. You hooked up with a complete joke of an accountant who’s had his license revoked in two states. You urged your employees not to pay taxes. When the government called you on the ridiculousness of the whole thing you brought in a note from Woody Harrelson. I can see the judge now: I was gonna throw the book at him but the hayseed bartender from Cheers says Wesley’s a great guy. And Money Train was a great flick, yo.

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