Celebrity Tax Problems with Teresa and Joe Giudice

Teresa and Joe Giudice are the stars of Bravo's reality show, "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" and they do not disappoint. In season 1, Teresa flips a fully set dinner tableand attacks another housewife while screaming at her that she's a "prostitution, whore" (pretty sure she was though), then spent the next three or four seasons calling her brother's wife, Melissa, a stripper, a gold digger, a cheater and a "fake" (Wolf Tax thinks Melissa is so fake too) and incited a string of verbal and physical fights between cast members, friends, and anyone else tangentially related to anyone on the show by generally lying and weaseling her way around town.

Joe Giudice, on the other hand, spent about 5 seasons drinking, calling Teresa a "bi*ch" to some mysterious person on the phone who he claims was not another woman but who clearly was another woman, chipping his tooth in a drunken indoor slip and slide accident, getting arrested for DUI, impersonating his brother to get a new license and physically fighting Theresa's brother (Joe won). Unbelievably, and pretty damn impressively, these antics are the least of the Giudice's worries.

In 2013, authorities filed a 41 count indictment charging the couple with conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and bankruptcy fraud, plus making false statements and exaggerating their income on loan applications. Joe Giudice went above and beyond and allegedly did not file tax returns from 2004 through 2008 in a ploy to defraud the IRS. Prosecutors alleged that the couple stole $4.6 million in mortgages, home equity lines of credit and construction loans which they spent with reckless abandon on national TV while the rest of us suffered through the worst economy in almost a century.

Sadly, the Giudice's long reign of spending other people's money ended in May of 2014 when the couple pled guilty to multiple counts of fraud, with Joe also pleading guilty to avoiding income taxes on nearly $1 million. Teresa faces a possible sentence of up to 27 months in prison and was fined $200k, while Joe could be behind bars for up to 46 months. Oh, and oops...Joe is still an Italian citizen, so when he finishes his sentence, he will probably be deported.

While the penalty for not filing your personal income taxes will probably not result in 46 months behind bars, don't say we didn't tell you so when you're charged an extra 25% of your total tax bill as punishment. Pretty stiff, right? At Wolf Tax, our experts know the ins and the outs of the federal tax code so we know how to prepare your tax returns to show the smallest tax liability possible. Make sure you don't end up behind bars and deported to another country like Joe.