Word: jail
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...last year. That means the chances of getting caught are ludicrously small-and the chances of getting prosecuted are smaller still. Though an estimated 50 million returns understate the tax due, only 1,624 people were prosecuted for tax evasion in 1982 and just 917 were sentenced to jail...
...from 733 to 1,291. The backlog of civil suits over the amount of taxes due has swelled from 27,910 at the end of 1979 to 53,440 now. A number of experts believe that there should be not only more prosecutions but stiffer penalties. "A touch of jail for the Harvard graduate is a strong deterrent," says Lincoln Almond, the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island...
Actually, Congress did increase the maximum fine from $10,000 to $100,000 in 1982, and the courts are beginning to impose tougher sentences. In 1972, only 37% of convicted tax cheaters went to jail; they stayed an average of eleven months. Last year 58% were put behind bars for terms averaging 26 months. On the state level, light sentences are still the rule. In Massachusetts, for example, the longest jail term for each count of tax evasion is five years, but first-time offenders receive an average sentence of six months-and only eleven evaders were packed...
...number of states have started crackdowns. Illinois hired 240 auditors and collectors last year, and increased the penalties for evading taxes from six months in jail and a $500 fine to one year and $1,000 for first-time offenders. It was able to collect $119.5 million in unpaid taxes and identify another $137 million owed. So far this year, it is doing even better, collecting $86 million and finding $78 million more in arrears. After adding
...nothing else, the arrest has given Stratton plenty of time to perfect his craft. Unable to come up with bail of $500,000, he has been in jail in Portland since September busily at work on his first novel, Drug War. The initial 300 pages of the manuscript have been ferried to a New York City literary agent by Mailer, who has been down this road before. Two years ago, Mailer was promoting and urging the parole of a prison author named Jack Henry Abbott (In the Belly of the Beast), who won release but later killed a Manhattan waiter...