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LOCAL TAILOR DONS STRIPES

May 25, 2007

An Urbandale man was sentenced yesterday to five months in wide stripes yesterday, the Des Moines Register reports:

A 51-year-old Urbandale man was sentenced today to five months in federal prison for failing to pay more than $50,000 in federal income taxes over four years.

Joseph Kim, owner of Kim’s Tailor Inc. at Valley West Mall in West Des Moines, pleaded guilty in January to one count of tax evasion for using a business account to pay for personal expenses that substantially reduced the reportable net income of the business, according to federal court documents.

Mr. Kim negotiated the plea deal after being charged originally with four evasion counts; he filed no returns from 2000 through 2003.

The Register allows readers to post comments on their stories. A reader commented on this story:

Let's see....$50,000/5 months prison = $10,000/1 month.
Plus...........$50,000/5 months home confinement =$10,000/1 month.
Plus.....$50,000/2 years probation = $2,083.33/1 month.
And no mention of restitution.

So, I'll skip $5,000 in taxes, take two weeks prison, 2 weeks home confinement and 2.4 months probation.

Sure beats minimum wages. Yep, this'll scare hell out of any other potential tax evaders. Great system we got here.

The commenter misses an important part of the problem with evading taxes - the jail sentence doesn't mean you don't have to pay the taxes, too. In fact, the IRS may add 75% to the taxes as a civil fraud penalty. That changes the math.

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