Legal

Lauryn Hill jailed over unpaid (now paid) taxes

By | Published on Tuesday 7 May 2013

Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill was yesterday sentenced to three months in jail and an additional three months confined to her home in relation to those previously reported unpaid taxes. The singer’s lawyers had been pushing for a suspended sentence, noting that she had now paid $970,000 to settle her tax debts and that she had a large family to care for.

Echoing previous statements on the matter, Hill again stressed that she always intended to pay the taxes, relating to income from 2005 to 2007, but that circumstances resulted in the delay. She said yesterday: “I needed to be able to earn so I could pay my taxes, without compromising the health and welfare of my children, and I was being denied that”.

As previously reported, Hill, who could have faced up to a year in jail for the tax offences, was in part able to repay her debts thanks to a new deal with Sony Music. Presumably as part of that arrangement, a new Hill track has appeared on iTunes, entitled ‘Neurotic Society’, though it’s dubbed the ‘Compulsory Mix’, and the singer has said she’d not have made it public so quickly had it not been for her legal problems.

In a post on Tumblr, she said: “Here is a link to a piece that I was ‘required’ to release immediately, by virtue of the impending legal deadline. I love being able to reach people directly, but in an ideal scenario, I would not have to rush the release of new music… but the message is still there. In light of Wednesday’s tragic loss (of former label mate Chris Kelly), I am even more pressed to YELL this to a multitude that may not understand the cost of allowing today’s unhealthy paradigms to remain unchecked!”

Listen to the track here:



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