Tax-Fraud Trial of Movie Star Grabs Attention

Jan 30, 07:33 AM

By Travis Reed

The Associated Press

OCALA, Fla.

Even Hollywood couldn't have written a more ideal script for the Internal Revenue Service than actor Wesley Snipes' tax-fraud trial.

At a time when millions of Americans are buckling down to prepare their taxes, Snipes is being cast as a villainous example of the dangers of joining with Internet-fueled activists who say the IRS has no authority to collect taxes.

Snipes, the star of the "Blade" films and "White Men Can't Jump," is on trial with two tax protesters in one of the biggest criminal cases in IRS history, and the agency hopes the media attention on the matter will dissuade others in the "tax avoidance" movement from trying to outwit the government.

"People who do it openly and notoriously, you've got to go after them," said Sheldon Cohen, who was IRS commissioner in the 1960s. "Not because he's that important or the amount of money is that important, but because there are others who may be foolish enough to follow."

Snipes, 45, could get up to 16 years in prison if convicted on all counts, but sentences that long are unusual. His two co- defendants are an anti-tax ideologue who refuses to defend himself in court and an accountant who lost his licenses. The trio rested their defense Monday without calling any witnesses, saying they didn't need to.

"Nobody likes paying taxes, but paying taxes is the price we pay to live in a civilized society," Assistant U.S. Attorney M. Scotland Morris said Tuesday in closing arguments. "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."

Defense attorney Robert Barnes said Snipes' actions weren't criminal.

"Disagreement with the IRS is not fraud of the IRS, is not deception," Barnes said. "It was an attempt to engage the IRS, to go through the IRS procedures and processes and see who's right."

In filings to the IRS, the defendants said they did not legally have to pay taxes, citing an obscure section of the tax code that establishes that foreign sources of income for U.S. citizens are taxable. Protesters take that to mean only foreign sources are taxable, and wages made in this country are not.

Snipes, who is free on $1 million bond, was paying millions of dollars in federal income taxes until 2000 when, prosecutors say, he accepted the arguments of his two co-defendants. Snipes then is said to have begun seeking nearly $12 million in illegal refunds for taxes he already had paid.

Snipes, alleged ringleader Eddie Ray Kahn and former CPA Douglas P. Rosile were indicted on eight counts alleging tax fraud, conspiracy and willful failure to file returns.

on the case

Wesley Snipes is on trial with two tax protesters for tax avoidance in one of the biggest criminal cases in IRS history. He could get 16 years if convicted.

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