American Entertainment News: ‘Empire’ Star Terrence Howard Directed to Pay $900k in Unsettled Taxes After Denouncing Taxation of Descendants of Slaves
A federal judge in Philadelphia has mandated that ‘Empire’ actor Terrence Howard shell out nearly $1 million in overdue taxes, interest, and fines following claims that he verbally attacked a Justice Department attorney and argued that it was
“immoral for the United States government to charge taxes to the descendants of slaves.”
According to reports, Terrence managed to evade attempts by the IRS to recover $578,000 in income taxes he allegedly neglected to pay from 2010 to 2019. The Justice Department initiated legal action against him in 2022.
Despite numerous attempts to engage Howard in court proceedings subsequent to the Justice
Department’s legal action in 2022, the actor’s sole response was purportedly a voicemail he left on the phone of the lead tax attorney for the case in November.
According to Philly Inquirer, the actor responded with a voicemail sent to the case’s lead tax attorney.
“Four hundred years of forced labor and never receiving any compensation for it,”
Terrence said in the message per a court transcript.
“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 recording cut Howard off midsentence, but he called the attorney back to continue.
“In truth, the entire United States should, by default, become the property of the descendants of slaves,”
he said. “But since you do not have the ability [or] the courage to do it, let’s try this in court. … We’re gonna bring you down.”
Despite that vow, Howard never formally responded to the lawsuit. And after a court hearing last week in Philadelphia, U.S. District Judge John F. Murphy granted the government’s request to enter a $903,115 default judgment against the actor, a ruling that was first reported by the legal news service Law360.
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