Actor Wesley Snipes’ trial for tax evasion will start today in Ocala, Florida. amidst 1999 and 2004, Snipes earned $38 million and paid precisely nothing in taxes.

What’s his explanation? Ah, that’s easy: He doesn’t think he has to pay taxes. According to the New York Times, Snipes has “become an unlikely public face for the antitax movement, whose members preserve that Americans are not obligated to pay income taxes and that the government extracts taxes from its citizens illegally.”

Snipes will argue that he didn’t break the law on the basis of the so-called

861 provision which claims that only “compensation for services” and not wages are taxable. The theory has been rejected in the past but, in recent years the government has lost several major cases involving tax deniers.

In order to be successful, Snipes will have to convince society that he genuinely believed that he did not have to pay taxes. The case’s high profile nature makes it a must-win for the government: A loss would be a big boon to the antitax movement, and would doubtless embolden tax evaders.

Original post by Zac Bissonnette