Sometimes when I see the financial bloopers that famous people have made, it makes me wonder how, with all their agents, managers, and assistants working for them, this could have happened? The latest big name to be under federal scrutiny for failing to file tax returns is Grammy-award winner Lauryn Hill, formerly of the Fugees. She is allegedly being charged with failing to file taxes for three years in a row, a time period during which she made $1.8 million in income. I want to sit her down and say Lauryn, what happened girl? Weren’t you the one who sang, “It’s funny how money changes situations/miscommunication leads to complications/consequences, no coincidence”? Hill is facing a year in prison and up to $300,000 in penalties. David Voreacos of Business Week reported,
“Lauryn N. Hill, the Grammy-award winning singer, was charged with failing to file three years of income tax returns with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
Hill, of South Orange, New Jersey, was accused in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, of not filing returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007. She received $1.8 million in gross income in that period, primarily in music and movie royalties, according to the charges.
Hill faces a year in prison and a $100,000 fine on each of the three misdemeanor counts. She was charged in a criminal information, a document that often precedes a guilty plea. She’s scheduled to appear in court in Newark on June 29, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said today in a statement.
“Ms. Hill has been fully cooperating with the IRS’s investigation for a number of years,” her attorney, Nathan Hochman, said in a telephone interview. “
Click here to read more details behind Miss Hill’s failing to file taxes.
Sometimes I think it’s good to see the wrong way of going about something, to get a lesson out of it. And today’s lesson is, no matter how much money you have, how famous you may be, or how many Grammy’s you’ve won, you can still go to jail for tax evasion. Period. Please guys, be honest and forthright about taxes! I wish Miss Hill all the best, and hopefully her past tax transgressions won’t be killing her softly for years to come.
