Justice loses another tax denier case

Wesley Snipes Is Acquitted of Tax Felonies
By David Cay Johnston
The New York Times

Friday 01 February 2008

Ocala, Florida - The actor Wesley Snipes was acquitted of the most serious charges against him on Friday in the most prominent tax prosecution since Leona Helmsley, the billionaire hotelier, was convicted of tax fraud in 1989.

Mr. Snipes was found not guilty on two felony charges of fraud and conspiracy. He was also acquitted on three misdemeanor charges of failing to file tax returns or to pay taxes, but was convicted on three others. He faces up to three years in prison.

Mr. Snipes had become an unlikely public face for the tax-denier movement, whose members maintain that Americans are not obligated to pay income taxes and that the government extracts taxes from its citizens illegally.

Two co-defendants - Eddie Ray Kahn, a promoter of tax denial, and Douglas Rosile, a disbarred accountant - were convicted on separate felony counts.

"The verdict shows that promoters face serious jail time" but clients who follow their advice will face a lesser but still-serious risk, said JJ MacNab, a Maryland insurance analyst who attended the trial and is writing a book about tax deniers.

(Continued here.)