Tax Lawyer's Blog

Yikes!

Tax Girl, Kelly Phillips Erb, reports today that,

Janine Lindemulder (a/k/a Janine James), a porn star who goes by the clever stage name “Janine”, learned her fate last week stemming from a guilty plea to tax evasion. Janine will spend six months in prison (plus one year of supervised release) after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of willfully failing to pay tax.

Jail time for a misdemeanor is rare. Couldn’t they just have sentenced her to . . . ahem . . . “community” service?

Here, according to Tax Girl, is the government’s justification for the harsh sentence:

The feds in this case recommended prison time due to Janine’s actions during the time that she had the outstanding tax obligations, including her dramatic spending. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Cardani wrote in his pre-sentencing memo, comparing Janine to Wesley Snipes, that, “[w]hile Snipes failed to report far more income than defendant James, her tax defiant conduct is similarly offensive. She has demonstrated an attitude of greed and privilege, and has taken advantage of her status as a high profile figure, while at the same time wantonly ignoring her obligation to pay taxes. A meaningful sentence is necessary to get the message to her and others that no one is beyond the law and they must pay their taxes just like everyone else.

Maybe the prosecutor and the Judge were disappointed in Janine’s oeuvre: The movies Head to Head, Laptop and Blondage?

Warning to Non-Filers: Before I read about this case I would regularly tell my new non-filer clients that intentionally failing to file a tax return is a misdemeanor. Usually they are relieved to hear that it’s not a felony and if they are caught and prosecuted, they probably won’t be sent to prison.

But now, as a result of this case, I will begin telling my clients that if they’re convicted of the misdemeanor of non-filing (rather than the felony of tax evasion), it will not guarantee that the prosecution won’t seek the imposition of prison time.

Author’s Advice: File your back tax returns NOW, whether or not you have the money to pay what you owe.

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