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Taxman Curbs Hollywood Big's Enthusiasm
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Taxman Curbs Hollywood Big's Enthusiasm -
Taxman Curbs Hollywood Big's Enthusiasm -
Taxman Curbs Hollywood Big's Enthusiasm -
Taxman Curbs Hollywood Big's Enthusiasm -
Taxman Curbs Hollywood Big's Enthusiasm
DUH: Courtney Love owes some lawyers some money
JANUARY 20--After a three-year battle with the Internal Revenue Service, Hollywood power broker Gavin Polone last month came up on the wrong side of an $815,000 U.S. Tax Court decision. Polone, an executive producer of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and confidante to the likes of Conan O'Brien and Larry David, had argued that payments from his former employer, United Talent Agency (UTA), did not qualify as income and, as a result were not taxable. Federal Judge Juan Vasquez, however, disagreed with that interpretation, ruling that Polone had to pay the IRS deficiencies of $407,880 for 1997 and 1998. The UTA payments in question came as a result of one of Tinseltown's nastiest disputes, one triggered by the agency's controversial 1996 firing of Polone, a driven, combative Hollywood iconoclast. We've only excerpted Vasquez's December 13 ruling, though the judge's 63-page decision is a rather interesting read (click here to read it in the PDF format). Polone shouldn't have a problem coming up with the 815k, since he's banked more than $20 million over the past decade, according to Vasquez's decision. (5 pages)
