And here I thought my days of reporting on Joe Francis were over…
It turns out that the Girls Gone Wild founder hasn’t quite put his tax woes behind him. After taking a deal to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of filing false tax returns – and escaping additional jail time in the process – Francis has found himself in the hot seat again.
If you believe TMZ, the IRS has liened Francis for nearly $34 million. To clarify, the IRS claims that Francis owes tens of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes. The breakdown is as follows: $17.7 million in 2001, $11.2 million in 2002 and $4.9 million in 2003. I’m not sure how much the penalties are since I haven’t seen the actual liens but those numbers put his net income somewhere close to $100 million for those three years.
I know, I know. Here I’ve blogging tax all this time when clearly, I should be producing porn.
On the plus side, though, I haven’t had to advise TMZ that my accounts have been frozen by the IRS to the tune of $100 million (no, those numbers don’t quite make sense – just reporting as I hear it). Francis has also allegedly reported that he will file for personal bankruptcy on tomorrow.
I’m not sure how this will affect Francis’ plea deal which requires him to resolve his outstanding tax issues. I mean, it is a resolution – but I’m guessing not so much what IRS had in mind. We’ll see.
(Editor’s note: I have since seen a copy of the liens as filed with LA County. As of 11/06/2009, the liens totaled $33,819,088.14)
The woman who claims that she “never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back” may have to change her mind when it comes to Bernie Madoff. Zsa Zsa Gabor claims to have lost between $7-$10 million as part of Madoff’s scheme, leaving her with some substantial tax woes.
The 92 year old actress has been liened by the Internal Revenue Service for $118,000 for the years 2001 and 2002; the lien has been filed against one of Gabor’s mansions in California. Gabor’s lawyer, Chris Fields, says that the tax bill is part of the fallout from the Madoff scheme.
Gabor’s husband (from her longest marriage – so far) German playboy Frederic von Anhalt intends to help Gabor work out a payment plan with the IRS. Anhalt has reportedly received millions of dollars by selling the Anhalt name by adopting, along with Zsa Zsa, several men. If that sounds a little bit crazy, remember that this is the same man that claimed to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby (yeah, that’s where you’ve heard the name before). Crazy is relative.
Suddenly, it’s not so fashionable to have your money in Swiss banks. That’s sooo February 2009. This season, all of the trendy tax evaders are heading somewhere else.
In the wake of increased activity by IRS to track down previously undisclosed assets (joined by the taxing authorities in countries like the UK and Germany), banks in Switzerland are reporting that the assets just aren’t pouring in like they used to. The slowdown started midyear, not coincidentally the time when the US government was exerting pressure on Switzerland to relax its banking secrecy laws.
In support of this trend, two BoA/Merrill Lynch analysts, Derek De Vries and Marc Brehm, have reported that at least one Swiss Banking Group, the Julius Baer Group, “was slightly more cautious than we expected on net new money.” In other words, Baer isn’t drawing the number of new accounts globally that they once were.
And the pendulum swings both ways. If it’s no longer attractive for Americans to do business in Switzerland, then many Swiss have countered that they will pull out of the US. Wegelin & Co., Switzerland’s oldest bank, is recommending that clients “exit from all direct investments in US securities… on the grounds of the threat of inheritance tax coupled with uncertainty as to whether one might not, one way or another, be turned into a US person.” Their gist, and I’m not making this up, is that our state of “moral and fiscal decline” means that it doesn’t make sense to invest in the US anymore.
So it’s time to panic, right? Not at all. Pulling out of investing in US-controlled securities is an interesting recommendation but not a terribly viable one. Like it or not, even in the midst of a recession, the US economy is a huge part of the global scene.
It’s kind of like how you’ll continue to see Paris Hilton in the papers. Even if you don’t like her, she adds value to an event – even if it’s just added publicity.
In other words, they don’t have to like us but I think the Swiss will still invite us to their parties.
“Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis feels he finally got a break when a federal judge okayed a deal that Francis struck with prosecutors. Under the agreement, Francis was credited with 301 days already served and sentenced to one year of probation.
The plea deal was struck after Francis learned that a key witness, Francis’ former accountant, had withheld information from his defense team at trial. Francis was originally indicted on tax evasion charges in 2007 stemming from a number of income omissions and false deductions. He pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of filing false tax returns and one count of bribing Nevada jail workers.
“I think we won that one,” Francis said after the hearing.
The former bad boy was polite during the hearing, answering questions as asked. It was quite a turn-around from the belligerent persona he had maintained since the charges were first brought against him in 2007.
After the hearing, he kissed his mother.
Apparently he really does kiss his mother with that mouth.
