Terrence Howard, actor from TV's 'Empire,' 'Crash,' and the original Rhodey in 'Iron Man' has a bold theory for getting out of paying taxes: threaten a DOJ lawyer and say making the descendants of slaves pay taxes is immoral.
To quote 'Dodgeball,': It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for him.
Spoiler alert: it didn't.
More from The Philadelphia Inquirer:
A federal judge in Philadelphia has ordered Academy Award-nominated actor Terrence Howard to pay nearly $1 million in back taxes, interest, and penalties after he allegedly threatened a Justice Department lawyer and maintained that it was “immoral for the United States government to charge taxes to the descendants of slaves.”
For more than a year, the 54-yera-old start of the TV hit Empire, whose last listed address was in Plymouth Meeting, rebuffed IRS efforts to collect $578,000 in income taxes it says he failed to pay between 2010 and 2019.
And despite a months-long effort to engage Howard in court after the Justice Department sued him in 2022, the actor's only response was a voicemail he allegedly left on the phone of the case's lead tax attorney in November.
According to the transcript of that message, included in court filings, Howard denied owing anything and threatened to shame her by posting the lawsuit against him on the Internet.
"Four hundred years of forced labor and never receiving any compensation for it," the actor said in the message. "Now you have the gall to try and prosecute and charge taxes to the descendants of a broken people that you are responsible for causing the breakage."
The article goes on to say Howard never formally responded to the suit.
Let's just put this out there: Terrence Howard never did any forced labor. He was born in 1969. No one alive today enslaved his ancestors. His net worth, according to TheRichest.com, is around $30 million.
He should pay taxes. So should every other American. His 'fair share' and all that, as Biden likes to say.
Also, threatening lawyers and not responding to a lawsuit is a great way to lose in court.
Between Howard and Jussie Smollett, probably insanely dramatic
Exactly.
Exactly.
Lots of posts agreed with Howard. Yikes.
Who will build the roads if he doesn't?
Sure feels that way.
This made us laugh.
Note his original back taxes were just under $600k; if he had hired a lawyer and answered the suit, he probably wouldn't have paid that much.
Harsh, but true.
Yep.
Someone else can pay their fair share.
If you don't get the reference, he believes 1x1=2 (it doesn't).
Explains a lot, frankly.
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