Lauryn Hill jailed for tax evasion

DanielMMS · 7 May 2013 at 10:09

Story here

I think I've heard of her before but have no idea what her music is like. What struck me about her story was her statement in court:

"I am a child of former slaves who had a system imposed on them," Hill said in court. "I had an economic system imposed on me."

Now, admittedly I am white middle class, but I'm really struggling to understand how she could possibly realistically link slavery to the tax system. Is this not playing the race card a little too far? Very odd.

DanielMMS · 7 May 2013 at 13:01

groen said:
Disgusting realy, lock her in a cage because she wanted to keep the money she earned. Even though she has had $1 million stolen now they want to make an example out of her and when she gets out of prison she still has to be a prisoner in her own home, realy realy disgusting display of grotesque power of the state. Nothing better than common thieves. They would have taken her kids away and sold them to another family and then taken everything she owns, even after all that they will still ruin her name. Disgusting. IF she resisted any of this with force, they would not have hesitated to murder her. Next time you think about how great and caring the state is. think of this one.

Oh, wait. It's groan. So, yes, probably serious. Misguided nonsense, but serious

.

DanielMMS · 7 May 2013 at 14:40

kwerk said:
"I happily pick cotton all day long on the plantation and have never seen the master's whip". Try NOT paying them. If you dont work for free and give the proceeds to the government they will:

A. Lock you up in prison.
B. Shoot you, then lock you up in prison.
C. Shoot you to death.

But that isn't really what happened in this case - or indeed any cases of people being unable to pay their taxes here or in the US. First off, she had 10 years or so to file her returns and pay the taxes due. If, at any point, she found herself to be unable to meet her liabilities she could have approached the IRS to discuss paying in instalments. She could even have attempted to reach a compromise arrangement. Instead, it would seem she has simply refused to file correct returns and pay the tax right up to the point when her legal team has realised she is likely to incur a custodial sentence when suddenly the funds become available and she settled the liability.

The fact is she was convicted of tax evasion. That doesn't mean that she simply did not pay her taxes. Or even that she refused to pay her taxes. Or that she took a stance on grounds of morality. It means that she deliberately and criminally attempted to hide her true tax liability in order to retain more of earnings than should have been the case.

DanielMMS · 7 May 2013 at 14:55

kwerk said:
Amazon, starbucks, google, etc all do it. I think Amazon UK only paid £1 million in UK tax. Fair play to them I say. Meanwhile the plebs are paying VAT and everything else. But when a pleb tries to avoid it they get locked up.

The organisations you mention work within the law so the IRS, courts, whatever cannot do anything about them regardless of the moral position. Hill broke the law - so should that simply be ignored?

Besides, the "well, there are worse people" argument is pretty ridiculous.

DanielMMS · 7 May 2013 at 14:57

kwerk said:
Then if you don't pay your taxes you get your passport revoked and a one way ticket to a country of your choice.

So a lifetime's banishment from your home is a better option than 3 months (probably considerably less in the end) in chokey? Yeah, right.

DanielMMS · 7 May 2013 at 15:34

Not really sure how anyone can truly justify not paying taxes on the basis that they do not get anything of value back. This article is over a year old now but it illustrates the point of where your tax money goes, summarised below.

Tax breakdown for £25,500 salary
£2,080 Pensions and Benefits
(including £212 on Housing Benefit and £296 on Incapacity Benefits)
£1,094 on the NHS
£824 on Education
£339 on Defence
£160 on the Police
£44 on Prisons
£92 on Roads
£71 on Railways

Of these, you could choose private pension, private healthcare and private education, but that would probably work out more expensive than the state funded alternatives. Difficult to avoid defence, police, prisons, roads and railways if you want to live in a safe society and be able to get places.

DanielMMS · 7 May 2013 at 15:38

This gives a more detailed analysis of where taxes go.

DanielMMS · 8 May 2013 at 09:48

Random Guy said:
Not sure why the OP did not think to include it....

Something to do with the fact that it was only put on Wiki this morning... :rolleyes:

DanielMMS · 8 May 2013 at 10:09

Mr Jack said:
Name a country without taxation*, and we'll look at why they're (a) a special case in a manner that doesn't apply to the UK and (b) don't actually function "perfectly fine"?

There are no countries remotely comparable to the UK that are successful without taxation.

* - note that income tax is not the only form of taxation.

There are quite a number of countries without personal income tax but I can't think of any without any tax at all.

Of those that have no personal income tax:

UAE (government expenditure mostly funded through oil) still has social security contributions (albeit only for locals and not expats!), corporation tax, housing fees, road tolls, municipal taxes, alcohol tax and sales tax. The other oil states - Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman - all have a similar set up.

The other group are the offshore finance centres - Cayman, Bermuda, Bahamas. Again, they have another source of income so need not rely upon personal income tax. That said, they are all hugely expensive places to live and, other than Cayman, get large sums off individuals in one way or another.