When Ja Rule dreamed of re-entering the pop culture annals, we’re pretty sure this wasn’t what he had in mind. Lawyers for the United States of America on behalf of the IRS filed a lawsuit this week against Ja Rule, and whose given name is Jeffrey Atkins, and his wife, Aisha.
For what, you ask? For their refusal to pay $3 million in federal taxes.
Apparently, the Atkins failed to pay taxes from 2005-2010 and again from 2012-2017, reported Radar Online. For the sake of accurate reporting, Uncle Sam alleged in court filings that the couple owes $3,139,237.76.
It’s the $0.76 for us.
Ja Rule clearly has an aversion to paying bills. In 2011, he was sentenced to 28 months in prison for not filing tax returns between 2004-2008. At the time, he owed $1.1 million. He was already in prison at the time for a 2007 gun possession charge. The feds tried to work things out with him and created a deal wherein they would forgive the 2007-2008 tax blunders, and he would pay $1 million in unpaid taxes and penalties.
“I had some issues when the whole Murder Inc. thing went down with my accountant, and she had some federal issues with the boys herself for doing some things, so I fell into a few issues there, but it’s not an issue like that. That’s being taken care of,” Atkins said at the time.
But, Ja Rule loves looking a gift horse in the mouth because, by 2019, The Source reported that he owed $2 million and that the IRS had taken out a series of liens on his and his wife’s incomes. The liens were from 2005-2008 and 2016 tax issues.
Now, the infamous get-rich-quick scheme he was involved in, the Fyre Festival, makes sense. His partner in the venture, Billy McFarland, was sentenced to six years in federal prison for the scam. Ja Rule said he had no idea it was a scam and avoided being arrested or charged with any crime in the matter.
Maybe Atkins can get Ashanti back in the studio and churn out the xylophone-heavy tunes that made them popular in the 90s to pay down his debt.
Surely, 50 Cent is somewhere crafting the perfect Instagram post on this matter.
