Actor Wesley Snipes must pay $9.5 million to the Internal Revenue Service after he failed to convince a tax court that he does not have the assets to pay the debt, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The IRS originally tried to collect $23.5 million in back taxes over a five-year span, but Snipes countered with an offer-in-compromise of $842,061 in cash, THR reported.
U.S. Tax Court Judge Kathleen Kerrigan on Thursday upheld the IRS decision, saying that Snipes did not provide sufficient proof of his assets and financial condition, according to THR.
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A lien was filed against Snipes in August 2013, when he owed $23.5 million for unpaid taxes from 2001 to 2006.
"Given the disparity between petitioner’s $842,061 OIC and the settlement officer’s calculation of $9,581,027 as his RCP, as well as petitioner’s inability to credibly document his assets, the settlement officer and her manager had ample justification to reject the offer," Kerrigan wrote in her opinion. "Accordingly, we conclude that the settlement officer did not abuse her discretion in determining that acceptance of petitioner’s OIC was not in the best interest of the United States."
