“White Men Can’t Jump,” but they can avoid prison time for tax evasion.
At least that’s the view of Republicans and other conservatives on social media who decided to drag out actor Wesley Snipes’ tax troubles to express their outrage over the plea deal offered to Hunter Biden, the president’s son, for similar charges.
Hunter Biden accepted an agreement from federal officials to avoid jail time, including for two misdemeanor counts of tax evasion in federal court.
Snipes, famously, did not avoid jail time for evading taxes.
“When does evading millions in federal income taxes get a slap on the wrist,” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said in a tweet Tuesday. “(Ask Wesley Snipes).”
Other right-leaning Twitter users also rushed to make the same comparison, including talk radio host James Golden who said: “Somebody needs to find Wesley Snipes and ask him how he feels about Hunter Biden getting a pass on this!”
Wesley Snipes went to jail for tax evasion
The famed actor, think 1990s classics like “Mo’ Better Blues” “Passenger 57,” and “Blade,” was convicted of three misdemeanor counts in 2008 for failing to file tax returns from 1999 to 2001.
He owed the government about $7 million in unpaid taxes after accepting the arguments of his two co-defendants, an accountant and an anti-tax ideologue.
At the time, Snipes argued the IRS was an illegitimate government agency and cited an obscure section of the tax code that establishes that foreign sources of income for U.S. citizens are taxable. He also claimed he was a non-resident alien. Snipes was born in the U.S. in 1962, however.
Snipes eventually lost an appeal for a retrial in 2010, which resulted in him serving nearly three years at a McKean Federal Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania.
What is Hunter Biden accused of doing?
U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who was first appointed by former President Donald Trump, filed a letter in federal court Tuesday citing the charges and the plea agreement.
In one case, Biden will plead guilty to the tax charges, which allege willful failure to pay federal income tax.
Biden allegedly received more than $1.5 million in taxable income during 2017, when he lived in Washington, D.C., and owed the federal government more than $100,000, court records show. He was required to pay the tax by April 2018, but didn’t, according to federal prosecutors.
He again received more than $1.5 million in 2018 and failed to pay his taxes by April 2019, according to the document.
In a separate plea, the president’s son agreed to enter a pretrial diversion agreement for a gun offense, in which he acknowledged unlawful possession of a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver, despite being addicted to drugs.
The Justice Department is recommending probation on the tax charges, according to the Associated Press, based on an unnamed source. The diversion program could eventually lead to dismissal of the gun charge.
