Twin Cities hotel magnate gets 4 1/2 years accommodation.  From TCBmag.com:

Local real estate developer Jeffrey Wirth was sentenced Wednesday to four-and-a-half years in prison for tax evasion, Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

In addition, U.S. District Judge Ann D. Montgomery ordered Wirth to pay $6.46 million in restitution to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Wirth, owner and CEO of Brooklyn Center-based The Wirth Companies, is also the former owner of the Grand Hotel in downtown Minneapolis, the Grand Rios Hotel & Waterpark in Brooklyn Park, and the Grand Lodge Hotel & Waterpark of America in Bloomington—as well as nearly 30 other businesses, according the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Mr. Wirth is known for his purchase of a $2 million island in Minnetonka, where he built a $3 million house that now sits derelict.  How did he get in such trouble?

They often recorded personal expenses as business expenses and claimed false “management fees” in an effort to “reduce the company’s overall taxable income to nearly zero,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Wirth also admitted to understating his own salary to the IRS.

That didn’t go well at all.

Prior coverage here. In unrelated Minnesota news,  Prince Fails to Comply With Tax Summons (TaxGrrrl)

$.0113 billion down, 5.1887 billion to go.   Fourteen arrested in U.S. tax fraud, identity theft ring  (Reuters):

“The defendants in this case allegedly tried to steal $65 million using stolen identities to obtain refunds to which they were not entitled,” U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement. They succeeded in getting $11.3 million in refunds.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says identity theft refund fraud is a $5.2 billion annual problem.  At this rate, it’s going to take a long time to solve.

Thanks, Justice Roberts!  ObamaCare “Penalty Tax” Now Estimated to Hit 6 Million Mostly Low- and Middle-Income Americans (William McBride, Tax Policy Blog).

We didn’t mean to screw it up so badly. Senator Grassley says the wave of firings of low-level bank employees for ancient minor legal problems wasn’t what they had in mind.  From the Des Moines Register:

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia., said the way the new rules are being applied goes against legislative intent and undermines the federal government’s credibility with citizens. The low-level firings are even more problematic given the failure of the Obama administration to arrest even a single big bank executive for professional misconduct, he said.

“There’s a real disconnect between letting bank executives get away with malfeasance on the criminal front and regulations that lead to the firing of rank-and-file workers over minor infractions from decades ago that had nothing to do with bank fraud,” Grassley said.

That’s wonderful, Senator.  You guys wrote a stupid law, and now that it’s being enforced, you say you didn’t mean to do that.  It’s like if a logger tried his hand at surgery and things went predictably bad; “I didn’t mean to do that” wouldn’t cut it.  Yet you guys routinely take your legislative chainsaw to the economy, with horrific results like Dodd-Frank, and Section 409A.  Oh, you didn’t mean to do that.

Math is hard.   Harkin: The ‘47 percent’ pay higher tax rate than Romney.  True? False.

Nick Kasprak,  Some Nonpayers Do Pay Income Tax:

Robert D. Flach,  THE FAULT, DEAR READER, IS NOT IN OURSELVES, BUT IN OUR CONGRESS.  Of course, we elect them.

Matchmaker.  About the 47 Percent Who Don’t Pay Federal Income Tax: Mitt, Meet Andrea (Howard Gleckman, TaxVox)

Dan Shaviro,  Don’t know much about history

Jack Townsend, DOJ Tax Budget Request:  Promo Piece with Some Statistics

Linda Beale,  Are lower taxes on “savings” good for the economy?  Heritage, CRS and the “Matthew Effect”

News you can use:  Facing exorbitant higher education costs? Your Uncle Sam might be able to help  (Kay Bell).  Of course our Uncle Sam is a big part of why the costs are so high in the first place.