Lauryn Hill Owes $440,000 in Back Taxes to New Jersey

Former Fugees singer Lauryn Hill is facing state tax troubles on top of her previous problems with her federal taxes.

A New Jersey court entered a civil judgment on June 14 against Hill for $446,386 in unpaid taxes, TMZ reported Tuesday.

Hill pleaded guilty later that month to failing to pay federal income taxes to the Internal Revenue Service on more than $1.8 million in income from 2005 to 2007 (see Singer Lauryn Hill Pleads Guilty to Not Paying Taxes).

After she was charged by federal authorities, Hill wrote a lengthy explanation on her Tumblr blog of her rationale for not paying taxes, saying she had gone “underground … in order to build a community of people, like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda.” However, she added that she eventually hoped to straighten out her tax problems (see Lauryn Hill Explains Failure to Pay Taxes).

At her federal court hearing in Newark, N.J., Hill’s attorney Nathan Hochman said she planned to pay her back taxes, according to Billboard.com. Judge Michael Shipp postponed sentencing until November to give Hill an opportunity to pay her taxes. When the judge asked her what influenced her to plead guilty, she reportedly answered, “Indirectly, I’ve been advised my ability to speak out directly is for another time, at sentencing.”

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