Celebrity tax troubles, high-profile scandals, and what the ultra-wealthy get away with — or don’t — when it comes to taxes.
The news this week has been chock full of stories about so-called “white collar criminals” like Helmsley, Tomko, and Ikebe, who made money by evading tax on millions of dollars. In many of these situations, jail time was drastically reduced (in Helmsley’s case from 16 years to less than 2 years) or altogether avoided (Tomko…
A Japanese housewife who made 400 million yen (which, using today’s conversion rate is $3,452,383.93 US) trading in foreign exchange markets was fined today for evading tax. The woman was estimated to have evaded 139 million yen ($1,200,091.07) US in income taxes. The 60 year old Tokyo woman, Yukiko Ikebe, received a suspended jail sentence…
Are good works enough to mitigate jail time? Is a nice resume an excuse to skip prison? Probably not. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled, in United States v. Tomko, that a sentence given to William Tomko which did not include prison time was not appropriate considering his crime. The case illustrates…
Maybe it’s the line of work that I do – I do a lot of estates related work – but I’ve often thought about how I might be remembered after I’m gone. Maybe that seems morbid to some folks, but it’s something that I deal with week in and week out, how folks are remembered…
Restaurant moguls Giuseppe Cipriani, 42, and Arrigo Cipriani, 75, accepted a plea today to willfully filing falsified state and local tax returns for the tax years 2003 and 2004. The admittance means that the pair will be required to pay $10 million in back taxes and penalties. Additionally, Giuseppe will serve three years of probation;…
Hate her because she’s beautiful and rich. Supermodel Gisele Bundchen of Brazil topped Forbes.com’s 2007 list of The Top Earning Models in the World with a whopping $33 million earnings last year. Even more surprising, Kate Moss came in second at a “paltry” $9 million – a pretty impressive differential. Estimates as to Gisele’s US…
Conrad Black had a reason to believe this Friday 13th was unlucky. The 62-year-old member of the British House of Lords was found guilty of criminal fraud and obstruction of justice and now faces up to 35 years in jail, along with massive fines and forfeitures. He remains free on $21 million bond and was…
Well, only if you were at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser last night. The often “out of the box” Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, offered $1 million to anyone in the audience who could prove that he paid a tax rate which was higher than those that work for him. Buffett claimed…
I read with unlimited glee and profound satisfaction the US Department of Justice press release of the nineteen count indictment of Steve Yagman. As a retired Los Angeles Police detective and a proud past member [sic] the Special lnvestigations Section (The “Death Squad” as referenced by Mr. Yagman), I would like to wish Mr. Yagman…
Walter C. Anderson’s failure to pay taxes finally caught up with him. And a botched plea agreement by the IRS potentially saved him millions of dollars. As previously reported, Anderson hid millions of dollars in personal income while reporting paltry sums on his income tax returns. To accomplish this, he created aliases and shell companies,…