Private jets, luxury suites, and the finest bottles of champagne – ‘necessities’ popular among America’s most loved and admired rappers may soon have to take on a lower priority. Why? The rappers have got to focus on paying off something a little more important first – their back taxes. With Method Man’s latest tax evasion scandal capturing headlines across the country, we’ve found that he may not be the only one with the issues. Just recently, famous performers Swizz Beatz and Fat Joe have also been struck by the IRS, proving that “money is a thing” after all. Let’s take a closer look.
- Method Man – Or, more formally, Clifford Smith, has been all the talk this past week. What’s the big fuss? First off, he was arrested in October on felony charges, and accused of declining to pay $32,799 in personal income tax along with state income tax. Method Man plead guilty to the charges and surrendered $106,000 in back taxes, penalties, and interest over to the IRS. While the arrest could have guaranteed him four years in prison, our Man got off with a mere ‘conditional charge’- basically a spot in time out, with all charges cleared as long as he could stay out of trouble.
- Swizz Beatz – Celebrated producer and acclaimed artist ‘Swizzy’ owes an even larger chunk of change to the IRS. Apparently, Beatz was recently served a $652,727 tax lien for unpaid federal taxes from 2008. What’s worse, this isn’t the first time. Swizz’s history shows a total of almost $2.2 million in back tax debt. I guess all of his ‘money in the bank’ could only last for so long…
- Fat Joe – We should have known when his two million dollar Florida estate went on the market. Owing over $71,000 to cover the lost judgment against Florida Sun Trust, Fat Joe takes the third and final position on our list. And, it turns out that Florida may be the least of this rapper’s worries. Fat Joe reportedly owes back taxes amounting to $139,000 from previous liens such as the $105,000 claim from the state of New Jersey in 2008.
So will our rappers clean up their acts? My opinion: They should focus less on rapping about money and more on taking charge of it, and maybe, just maybe, they could have a lasting chance.
