Musical Diva and grammy-winning singer Lauryn Hill yesterday appeared before a judge to determine the faith that awaits her after she had earlier pleaded guilty to tax evasion , she told the judge who sentenced her to prison that she planned to pay her taxes; it was just a question of when.
But thhe judge reacting to her statement said that “citizens don’t get to choose when to pay the government” just before ordering her to spend three months in a federal prison.
In her ruling, the judge said Ms Hill must report to prison on July 8 to begin serving the sentence for failure to pay federal income taxes for three years, followed by three months of home confinement and a year of supervised probation, the judge said. Hill must also pay penalties and taxes still owed and a $60,000 fine.
Hill pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million between 2005 and 2007.
The artist appeared Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, for sentencing.
Hill told the judge she lives “very modestly” considering how much money her music — she has sold 16 million records — earned for other people.
“Someone did the math, and it came to around $600 million,” she said. “And I sit here before you trying to figure out how to pay a tax debt? If that’s not like enough to slavery, I don’t know.”
“This wasn’t a life of jet-setting glamour,” she said. “This was a life of sacrifice with very little time for myself and my children.”
The income in question was mostly from music and film royalties paid to companies she owned between 2005 and 2008, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
“Although Hill pleaded guilty to charges specifically related to those tax years, her sentence also takes into account additional income and tax losses for 2008 and 2009 — when she also failed to file federal returns — along with her outstanding tax liability to the state of New Jersey, for a total income of approximately $2.3 million and total tax loss of approximately $1,006,517,” the prosecutor said.