There are a lot of people who should know the name DMX, who is best-known for his career as a rapper but has shown up in a number of movies such as Romeo Must Die and Cradle 2 the Grave as well. He has had brushes with the law for a wide range of reasons over the course of his career, but on July 14 of 2017, he was charged with 14 counts related to tax fraud. Seeing as how DMX was facing up to 44 years in prison, it is perhaps unsurprising that he has chosen to plead guilty, with the result that he is now facing up to 5 years in prison.
What Did DMX Do?
As it turns out, the IRS started looking into DMX’s finances in 2005, which happened because he avoided paying $1.7 million on taxes on the millions and millions that he earned from 2002 to 2005. Furthermore, DMX failed to file tax returns at all from 2010 to 2015. Finally, he even submitted an affidavit to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court stating that he had an unknown amount of income in 2011 and 2012 as well as $10,000 income in 2013, which considering his success in previous times, proved to be blatantly false.
With that said, the most interesting part is the lengths to which DMX went in order to avoid paying his taxes. For example, it is said that he lived in a cash-based manner, so much so that he stopped using his personal bank account at one point in time. Instead, he insisted that he be paid in cash, with an excellent example being when he refused to participate in a TV series until the producers gave in to his demands that they give him the paycheck without withholding the taxes from it. As for the royalties that DMX earned through his music as well as other pursuits, well, suffice to say that he had diverted them to the accounts of other people so that they could give the cash to him, meaning that there were more people than just DMX involved in this mess. Some of those people ranged from DMX’s ex-wife to not one but more than one of his managers.
What Happens Now?
Now, DMX has pleaded guilty in exchange for a more lenient punishment, which makes sense considering what he was facing before and what he is facing now. In court, he seemed to put some of the blame for his choices on other people by stating that he had put other people in charge of him, but in the end, he acknowledged his responsibility for failing to pay his taxes. As a result, it is now a matter of waiting until DMX receives his sentence, which is scheduled for March 29 in 2018 but could happen even later because of his rehabilitation for drug and alcohol issues. Besides the up to 5 years in prison, DMX is also facing three years of supervised release as well as a total of $100,000 in fines. Of course, he will be expected to pay the $1.7 million in back taxes as well, which is as it should be.
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