California’s Franchise Tax Board released its list of the 500 largest income tax delinquents on Tuesday. New to the list is a notation of whether or not the individuals have state licenses. I’m amazed at how many attorneys are on the list. Lawyers, after all, are one of three groups of professionals with full practice rights in front of the IRS. That doesn’t seem to help them here. But I digress….
Leading the list is Halsey Minor, founder of CNET. He filed bankruptcy earlier this year. He’s been on the list for a while, and given the bankruptcy, he’ll likely be on it for some time. He owes the FTB $10.7 million.
There are some celebrities on the list: Dionne Warwick ($2.6 million), Joseph Francis ($819,000), and Steven Seagal ($348,000) were highlighted by Joe Kristan. I also noticed Ronald Isley ($407,000) among the individuals.
Joseph Francis makes a second appearance on the list. His Mantra Films owes $1.2 million (the FTB added officers to the list for business entities which made it easy for me to spot this). In total, Mr. Francis and his businesses owe the FTB more than $2 million.
It took $140,000 in tax debt to make the FTB list.
The Board of Equalization also released its list of the 500 largest sales and use tax delinquents. Leading the list (again) is California Target Enterprises of Downey (owing $18.5 million). The company went bankrupt in 1992, so like Mr. Minor, good luck to the BOE in getting anything from them.
The only celebrity I recognize on the list is Bruce McNall, the former owner of the Los Angeles Kings and former resident of ClubFed (he was convicted of conspiracy and fraud back in the 1990s). Mr. McNall owes $7.8 million to the BOE, and it’s likely that collecting from his will be nearly as difficult as collecting from California Target Enterprises.
It took $436,000 to make the BOE list.