Think America’s royal family – celebrities – receive special treatment for the IRS? Ask the many celebrities who landed in tax trouble in 2010.
By Steven N. Klitzner
Her name is Jaime Pressly.
She’s best known for her role in the TV show My Name Is Earl.
You’ve seen her. She’s the pretty blond in the show, Earl’s ex-wife with a southern accent so annoyingly shrill no polite southerner would keep her company.
Pressly is funny, to be sure. But she’s also in a fair amount of tax problem.
She owes $542,069 to the Internal Revenue Service and another $95,080 to the taxmen of California.
Ouch, right?
But she’s not alone for having tax problems in Tinseltown. In fact, if you think celebrities get a pass when it comes to IRS enforcement, you’re wrong – and 2010 was a banner year for this.
Among the celebrities who received unwelcome letters from IRS agents in 2010:
- Actor Nicolas Cage earned the top spot on this list. The Leaving Las Vegas star owes – gulp! – $14 million in back taxes. That’s right – $14 million!
- Miami rapper Trick Daddy, lesser known for his given name Maurice Young, received a $157,000 tax bill from the IRS in 2010, the same year that saw his house foreclosed on.
- Val Kilmer could once land the best acting jobs in the business. These days, he’s carrying a little more weight and unlikely to be starring in anything you’d want to watch. Plus, he’s got IRS trouble, with the government having filed a $538,000 lien on his New Mexico home.
- Musician and former Haitian presidential hopeful Wyclef Jean owes the IRS $2.1 million. In May, the IRS filed a $724,332 tax lien against Jean’s $2 million home in New Jersey. And it wasn’t the first lien Uncle Sam has filed against the former member of the Fugees.
- Baywatch beauty and former Dancing With the Stars contestant Pamela Anderson is holding a $700,000 bill from the IRS.
- R&B singer Toni Braxton, best known for her hit single “Un-Break My Heart,” is in bankruptcy due to a host of debts. Among the debts: $400,000 to the IRS.
Let’s stop there, because the list goes on and on: actor Wesley Snipes, Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild, ’70s supermodel Janice Dickenson, comedian Chris Tucker …
OK, OK, we’ll stop, because there’s a point in discussing these celebrity tax problems.
If these well-known celebrities are vulnerable, if the IRS has no concerns about pursuing them, then why should you believe the IRS wouldn’t come after you if you’ve been cheating on your taxes?
Steven N. Klitzner is a Certified Tax Resolution Specialist, a member of the American Society of IRS Problem Solvers, and an Aventura attorney. You can contact him at 305-682-1118 to obtain a free subscription to his newsletter titled The IRS Times & Inquirer.
