Lauryn Hill told the judge who sentenced her to prison that she planned to pay her taxes; it was just a question of when.
The
judge reminded her that citizens don't get to choose when to pay the
government just before ordering her to spend three months in a federal
prison.
The Grammy-winning singer must report to prison on July 8
to begin serving the sentence for failure to pay federal income taxes
for three years, followed by three months of home confinement and a year
of supervised probation, the judge said. Hill must also pay penalties
and taxes still owed and a $60,000 fine.
Hill pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million between
2005 and 2007.
The
artist appeared Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo
in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, for sentencing.
Hill told
the judge she lives "very modestly" considering how much money her
music -- she has sold 16 million records -- earned for other people.
"Someone
did the math, and it came to around $600 million," she said. "And I sit
here before you trying to figure out how to pay a tax debt? If that's
not like enough to slavery, I don't know."
"This wasn't a life of
jet-setting glamour," she said. "This was a life of sacrifice with very
little time for myself and my children."
The income in question
was mostly from music and film royalties paid to companies she owned
between 2005 and 2008, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
"Although
Hill pleaded guilty to charges specifically related to those tax years,
her sentence also takes into account additional income and tax losses
for 2008 and 2009 -- when she also failed to file federal returns --
along with her outstanding tax liability to the state of New Jersey, for
a total income of approximately $2.3 million and total tax loss of
approximately $1,006,517," the prosecutor said.
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