The Hunter Bidens of the world get punished for alleged tax fraud by bragging about it
Tiana Lowe Doescher
Video Embed
Hunter Biden, for a time, seemed like he would get away with everything short of murder.
Despite mountains of evidence indicating he solicited prostitutes overseas, President Joe Biden’s wayward son managed to skirt criminal charges related to international human trafficking. And thanks to Justice Department special counsel David Weiss’s decision, as U.S. attorney for Delaware, to let the clock run out, any charges related to Biden’s alleged failure to register as a foreign agent while on the board of Burisma Holdings are beyond the statute of limitations.
SHADOW OF DOUBT: HOW 2020 ELECTION CHALLENGES IN ARIZONA AND GEORGIA ENDED
But in the end, it’s Biden’s hubris — and his failure to pay Uncle Sam — that has him staring down actual prison time. In a second round of indictments, issued Dec. 7, prosecutors charged Biden with nine counts of tax crimes related to his failure to pay his taxes on time, tax fraud, and tax evasion. The six misdemeanors and three felonies could result in as many as 17 years in prison if convicted. An arraignment for Hunter Biden is upcoming, where he’ll enter a plea.
Facing actual time behind bars for tax offenses is extremely rare, especially if one has as much political, legal, and financial privilege. So, how did Biden get himself in this position? First, by openly bragging about what federal prosecutors call his crimes. And second, by blowing up the sweetheart deal that would have insulated him from his tax crimes entirely.
Given the complexity of the U.S. tax code, Americans, naturally enough, will try to pay the least amount to the government legally permissible, and they sometimes fall short of their owed amount. But the IRS reserves criminal investigations for the “willful failure to file return, supply information, or pay tax.” Hunter Biden’s evasion, the prosecution alleges, was anything but accidental.
As a part of “a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020,” charging documents in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles say. Prosecutors argue that Biden deliberately “subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company, Owasco, PC,” while spending “millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills.”
Per the prosecutors’ estimation, Biden spent $1.7 million from 2016 through 2019 from both his personal bank accounts and that of Owasco, including nearly $1 million on “various women” and “adult entertainment.” In one month in 2019, both Hunter Biden’s ex-wife and the university student he impregnated took him to court, alleging he had skirted spousal support and child support, respectively.
Biden could have gotten away with this had he filed with the IRS’s voluntary disclosure program, which safeguards tax offenders from criminal repercussions if they proactively come into full compliance for past tax offenses.
Biden could have gotten away with this had he not publicly displayed all the ways he was spending the money he owed to the government, such as bragging about booking rooms at the luxurious Chateau Marmont and Petit Ermitage in Los Angeles. After all, as Vanderbilt University tax expert Beverly Moran told the Associated Press, of the tiny minority of tax cheats who do get caught, a good deal are high-profile offenders the IRS wishes to use as cautionary tales.
Biden could have gotten away with this had he not had the hubris to insist his sweetheart deal provide him immunity from any potential future prosecution related to his alleged work as a foreign agent as well as his tax and gun crimes. Instead, his attorney, upon discovering client Biden was only protected for the latter, told Biden’s father’s Justice Department to “just rip up [the deal].”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Again, while IRS audits disproportionately target the working and middle classes, it takes both intent and continual noncompliance for the IRS to graduate to the criminal investigation of offenders. Yet for those who do land in the crosshairs of a criminal prosecution, the odds are not good. Of the 2,550 criminal investigations by the IRS in fiscal 2022, more than 9 in 10 offenders prosecuted were convicted.
Moral of the story? If you’re going to skimp on your taxes, child support, and alimony to spend on prostitutes and pornography, don’t write a memoir about it. And certainly do not look the gift horse of a sweetheart plea deal in the mouth when it comes to trial.