Having reported for prison last Monday (July 8), Lauryn Hill has completed week one of a three-month sentence for failing to pay her income tax.
The musician and mother of six pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million from 2005 to 2007. The Grammy winning artist was sentenced to three months in federal prison, which she’ll serve at a low security female facility in Danbury, Connecticut.
Hill has sold 16 million albums, chiefly of her solo debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, but when she appeared before a judge in May, she said that she lives modestly considering the amount of money her music has earned for others.
“Someone did the math, and it came to around $600 million,” she said at the time. “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.”
The US attorney’s office said that the income in question was earned mainly from music and film royalties that were paid to companies she owned from 2005 to 2008. According to the prosecutor, the sentence handed down “also takes into account additional income and tax losses for 2008 and 2009, when she also failed to file federal tax 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.”
After her three-month prison stint, Ms Hill, whose first five children were fathered by Rohan Marley, son of Bob, will have to serve three months of home confinement and a year of supervised probation. She’ll also have to pay penalties, the taxes still owed and a $60,000 fine.
