David Allan Coe Pleads Guilty to IRS Charges Totaling $466,564 – Could Face Prison Time
One of country music’s most notorious Outlaws is in some serious hot water, and could be facing time in a Federal prison.
76-year-old David Allan Coe has plead guilty to one count of impeding and obstructing the due administration of the internal revenue laws in a Federal court in Cincinnati. The news was announced Monday, September 14th by U.S. attorney Carter M. Stewart of the Southern District of Ohio, and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Cincinnati Field Office special agent Kathy A. Enstrom. Coe could face up to three years in Federal prison, and a fine of up to $250,000 for the offense.
According to authorities, David Allan Coe played an average of 100 concerts between the years of 2008 and 2013, but failed to pay taxes on the income he generated. Authorities say that even when Coe did file his taxes, he would fail to pay the amount owed, while also owing additional taxes from previous years as far back as 1993. According to authorities, instead of paying his taxes, Coe paid off other debts, including large debts due to gambling.
Furthermore, investigators claim Coe purposely tried to circumvent the IRS. When Coe would perform, he would insist venues pay his booking manager in full before performing. The booking manager would then wire the money to Coe’s personal account. However in 2009, Coe stopped receiving the payments after receiving word from the IRS for his overdue taxes. Instead, Coe would insist in being paid cash before 3 p.m. on the day of a show, and could not be paid in $50 bills because according to investigators, he believed the denomination was bad luck in gambling.
The IRS says that David Allan Coe willfully did not pay his taxes in 2009, 2011 and 2013, and now owes $388,190.94 total in back taxes, interest, and penalties. The actual amount Coe will have to pay will be determined at sentencing.
On numerous occasions, altercations have erupted between David Allan Coe and venue owners when Coe’s terms were not met, including a high-profile spat with TV personality Richard Rawlings who says Coe tried to “extort” the Gas Monkey Bar & Grill in Dallas, TX in July of 2014.
“All taxpayers, regardless of their profession, must comply with their federal tax obligations,” said Kathy A. Enstrom of the IRS. “As is evident from Mr. Coe’s guilty plea, schemes to evade the payment of taxes are a violation of the Federal Tax laws and postpones the eventual need to comply at an even higher cost, including federal criminal prosecution and having to pay back taxes with interest and steep penalties.”
READ: Look, This is the Deal with David Allan Coe (An Editorial)
David Allan Coe is being represented by Memphis-based attorney, Michael Stengel. There is no word on when the sentencing in the case will occur.
September 14, 2015 @ 3:18 pm
Is anyone honestly surprised?
September 14, 2015 @ 11:45 pm
Yeah I’m surprised that Outlaws are always messed with and the rest of people can pay stuff and be left alone
September 14, 2015 @ 3:27 pm
I would hate to not see this be able to be worked out somehow. People settle on much larger amounts all the time. DAC is 76. Locking him up doesn’t help him pay the IRS a settlement amount. Let him play shows and work something out like they did Willie.
September 14, 2015 @ 3:57 pm
I doubt that at this point, Coe could pay much of anything back. He has a terrible reputation, as far as putting on a coherent, full-length show. I dobut many people are buying tickets. And if he’s crazy now, imagine how he’d be acting on stage if the IRS were taking a big chunk of the money! Nonetheless, I’d hate to see him get locked up. They’d probably just send him to a hospital ward, anyway.
September 15, 2015 @ 6:08 am
Yeah you would think that would make more sense (let him work out a deal and continue touring) and if the article is saying 100 shows a year on average that’s got to eventually add up to some decent money. I know when he plays around here it’s usually pretty good sized venues and typically a pretty strong turnout (much less bike weeks / etc where there’s always a packed house), and the quality of the music / show doesn’t seem to matter for the most part.
PS – I’m with him on the $50 bill thing, my dad always said the same thing (because Grant’s on the face of them)…I know a few people that won’t take them myself included
September 14, 2015 @ 3:44 pm
Awful news about one hell of a talented guy. It sounds like the man has a serious gambling addiction which is sad. Hopefully this all gets straightened out.
September 14, 2015 @ 3:49 pm
DAC is a scumbag, but is he actually a danger to anyone? Very unlikely. Let’s get this figured out, the Fed has bigger fish to fry than a 76 year old legend.
September 14, 2015 @ 11:48 pm
He’s a scumbag, really. He still fills the venues and is 100% real, what you see is what you get
September 14, 2015 @ 4:15 pm
Jailing Tax Offenders and Freeing Sex Offenders. The problems America faces in a nutshell.
September 14, 2015 @ 4:18 pm
I’m actually surprised, given that he was busted for not paying taxes 20 years or so ago. It seems like they’d keep a closer eye on a prior offender.
September 14, 2015 @ 4:20 pm
Good for DAC! At his age, I would say just go to jail and get the free health care. You’ve already had fun with the money. It’s not like you’ll be in general population. Don’t worry, it’s not like your taxes actually would have paid for anything other than interest on debt. It’s all funny money at this point anyway.
September 14, 2015 @ 5:48 pm
I’m sure this isn’t Coe’s motivation, but knowing all of the immoral things that the government does with your money, refusing to pay your income taxes is a noble cause.
As long as you are non-white, illiterate, poor and have no marketable skills, you can walk into this country and become a citizen almost immediately. As a bonus, you can get paid under the table, pay no taxes and still collect all the welfare, food stamps, etc. you can stuff in your overalls. But, if you were born here, paid taxes, social security, etc. your whole life, and accumulated a few bucks, you have to pay the IRS a king’s ransom just to leave the empire.
September 14, 2015 @ 8:43 pm
you forgot to include the elite politicians or if your name is Lois Lerner, who all benefit from all the handouts and kickbacks and are exempt from any criminal punishment for failing to obey any law
The real motivation here is for the IRS to get every last dollar DAC has including his guitar before his estate does
September 15, 2015 @ 12:21 pm
It is a fact that whites still outnumber all minority groups, combined, as recipients of state and federal aid in the US…. and plenty of minorities pay taxes. This is not a race issue.
September 15, 2015 @ 2:42 pm
To use the bible, “pearls before swine”.
September 16, 2015 @ 10:28 pm
To use the bible some more, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
September 14, 2015 @ 6:36 pm
Hey….Obama could make him a Czar, like he did his other cronies who owed back taxes, none of them went to jail…
September 14, 2015 @ 8:07 pm
76 and now owing that much Money….Yikes. This will prob about do him in Id think.
September 14, 2015 @ 8:35 pm
I wonder how he’ll squeeze this into Steve Goodman’s perfect country song?
September 14, 2015 @ 8:56 pm
Hard to feel sympathy for him. I love some of DAC’s songs, but the guy isnt going to be winning any humanitarian awards anytime soon.
September 14, 2015 @ 11:50 pm
He’s a standup guy 100% real
September 15, 2015 @ 1:57 am
What an outlaw!
September 15, 2015 @ 4:28 am
Al Sharpton should pay his taxes. Lois Lerner should have been honest and not lied as she did.
They single out David Alan Coe.
September 15, 2015 @ 5:11 am
“All taxpayers, regardless of their profession, must comply with their federal tax obligations”
Love how the IRS is so incompetent! They don’t even understand that the guy who told them to piss off and quit paying taxes, by definition, is not a “taxpayer.” (At least as far as the federal income tax is concerned)
Funny, but I can’t think of any new country “outlaws” who just said “f-you, ain’t paying shit” to the IRS
September 15, 2015 @ 5:47 am
Can we worry less about DAC and more about the tax evading 1%? Please?
September 15, 2015 @ 4:27 pm
I agree the 1% should be held more accountable, but this is really a case where DAC is the easier target. I doubt it’s so much the IRS aiming for Coe, more the fact that Coe probably isnt/wasnt smart enough to cover his tracks like rich people do.
I don’t want DAC to go to prison, but while I like a great many of his songs the man is pretty much a racist scumbag so I also don’t really feel sorry for him either.
September 15, 2015 @ 7:28 am
It seems pointless to single DAC out. Love him or hate him, his amount owed is a drop in the bucket. He still plays and draws big crowds at big venues like Billy Bobs in Fort Worth. Those shows are always decent. Let him gig and slowly pay it back. This beyond ridiculous. Whatever he is or isn’t as a human being is not the point. He is a good writer and artist. Let DAC live out his time doing what he does. Screw the IRS. Work something out!!!
September 15, 2015 @ 7:53 am
Eh, this isn’t surprising at all. This guy lost his marbles years ago and isn’t coherent enough to play a show anymore. I saw him 3 years ago and it was an embarrassing joke. Hank Jr. Is nearly as bad too nowadays. Hank Jr. Could barely get through his set last year when we saw him. Was a waste of money. Both of them do more patting themselves on the back about their own greatness than just singing the freakin’ song.
September 15, 2015 @ 9:17 am
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. DAC is a degenerate who isn’t particularly long for this world.
September 15, 2015 @ 9:43 am
He really needs to ditch the whole wig thing. It is absolutely ridiculous.
September 15, 2015 @ 11:29 am
Well I was drunk the day David Allan Coe got out of prison, and I went to pick him up in the rain, but before I could get to the station in the pick-up truck, he got run over by a damned old train…
September 15, 2015 @ 4:36 pm
Make the person driving the train an African American and you’ve got the perfect song for David Allan Coe.
September 15, 2015 @ 2:12 pm
Behavior like this can get you thrown in jail (DAC) or appointed by Obama as Treasury Secretary (Tim Geithner).
If there is one thing DAC knows about even more than songwriting, it’s doing time.
September 16, 2015 @ 8:03 am
Lovely how people here turn this into a political thing. Like DAC owing nearly damn near 500k is anything political at all, other than a man not paying taxes when he should’ve been.
September 16, 2015 @ 3:11 pm
There’s no law to plead guilty to!!
http://youtu.be/dOgJcA1wUtI
Watch this please!!! someone let him know about this please!!!
September 17, 2015 @ 11:11 pm
He should have been jailed years ago for his horrendous concerts. Who goes on without a bass player? I saw him with a drummer, his son on guitar and some guy hopping back and forth between a pedal steel and 6 string. After 2 songs Coe stopped the show to fuck with his guitar amp for 5 minutes. Afterwards he turned to the audience and said “you may like shitty music but I don’t”. Another time he played 4 songs at an outdoor venue the said “fuck this, it’s too cold” and walked off stage and drove away. Of course most in the audience are so hammered they couldn’t care less. I’ve even seen people passed out before the show even starts.
September 18, 2015 @ 7:45 am
“I”™ve even seen people passed out before the show even starts.”
I’ve seen this plenty of times at all kinds of concerts and sporting events. I’ve seen Coe a half-dozen times, probably three times with no bass player. I wouldn’t say that he puts on legendary shows, but each concert was different and unique, not just a recitation of his greatest hits. Some nights he barely talked and some nights he had a lot to say. I can’t understand why people would buy a ticket to a Coe show and then expect to see something that Garth Brooks would put on. He is what he is, and he doesn’t give a fuck whether you got what you were expecting or not. Very few artists have as many great songs as Coe.
September 18, 2015 @ 8:24 am
So you find it OK to play 4 songs and then walk out of the show? You find it acceptable to screw with your amp forever instead of letting the sound tech do his job. Coe puts on bs shows just to feed his gambling addiction. Most people that buy tickets to his show think he’s going to play kkk music. Most of which was never even him in the first place. He pretends to stop that misinformation but he know more than anybody that if it wasn’t for that little misconception of him he wouldn’t sell tickets.
September 18, 2015 @ 8:30 am
Of course its not ok to play 4 songs and walk off stage. As I said, I’ve seen him half a dozen times,and he’s never done that when I was there. As for your notion that “most people that buy tickets to his show think he”™s going to play kkk music,” that is absurd. Coe draws, or at least used to draw, one of the widest varieties of fans I have ever seen at a show. Hippies, metal heads, cowboys, bikers, punks, old couples in khakis and sweaters, high school and college kids, NPR-types, etc.
September 18, 2015 @ 9:12 am
Well this doesn’t surprise me, just like they screwed a “American Legend” Willie Nelson years ago. Funny how Al Sharpton (5.5 million) people in the IRS themselves and White House staff members owe years and years of un paid taxes, but they are still collecting paychecks and bonus’, but a man that contributes to America’s Heritage is treated like a dog. What happened to America?
September 18, 2015 @ 10:34 am
That falls under the category of questions that can’t and don’t need to be asked…
January 28, 2016 @ 7:35 pm
Federal income tax is illegal and unconstitutional. People have been so brain washed they believe the Fed has authority to take their money. Then they act like it’s no big deal. The FED is so incompetent they can’t balance a budget and they have ” lost ” 3 trillion dollars of the Pentagon’s budget. No one knows what happened to it. Not a single person has been fired or gone to jail, except for DAC. Good Job America.