![dek](https://content.time.com/time/photoessays/2009/10_tax_evaders/top10_tax_wesley_snipes.jpg)
Wesley Snipes tried nearly every defense to avoid paying taxes. Star of the Blade trilogy and White Men Can't Jump, Snipes narrowly escaped tax-fraud charges in 2008 after a lengthy trial in which he blamed his advisers for bad information and claimed, at various points, that the IRS was an illegitimate government agency, that he was a nonresident alien, that he had received bad information from his associates ... and on and on. The excuses weren't enough to dodge a conviction on the charge of not filing a tax return, and Snipes received a three-year prison sentence for his malfeasance.