The prosecutors submitted their sentencing memorandum today. They have asked the judge to sentence Snipes to 36 months in prison with a fine of at least $5 million, and let’s just say they didn’t mince words.

For nearly a decade, Snipes has engaged in a campaign of criminal tax conduct combining brazen defiance with insidious concealment. By these means, Snipes has escaped paying more than $15 million in income tax to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and has pursued an intended fraudulent harm to the United States Treasury of more than $41 million.  But for the limits of the statutory maximum sentence, the sentencing guidelines would call for term of imprisonment of more than 10 years. The intended loss in this case ($41,038,051) is so large that it is 100 times the amount ($400,000) that would place Snipes in a guidelines range calling for 36 months’ imprisonment. However, even beyond the enormous tax harm caused by Snipes, the multifarious nature of his schemes and the deterrence value of a substantial prison sentence for this truly notorious offender call for a full 36 months in prison.

To read the entire government filing, go here. 

Now compare those tax figures to what Snipes’ lawyers think he owes for the same time period.

At the April 11, 2008 meeting with the Probation Officer, counsel for the defendant proffered a one-page, high-level summary schedule showing a purported tax loss of merely $227,959 for the years 1999 – 2001. Counsel also proffered a one-page analysis captioned “Detail of RAR Analysis by Year,” covering only 1999, which putatively reduces taxable income by means of a “net operating loss carryover,” before it makes the tax virtually vanish by means of a claimed “foreign tax credit.” No other schedules have been provided to date.

And you have to wonder if the California state taxing authorities aren’t considering taking their own action.