{"id":21266,"date":"2014-09-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/shrinking-tax-gap\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T14:51:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T14:51:38","slug":"shrinking-tax-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/shrinking-tax-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shrinking Tax Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knowledge is protection when the IRS is involved. I'm Darrin Mish, a tax attorney in Tampa with 32 years of experience representing taxpayers nationwide. Here's what I want you to understand.<\/p>\n

More Aggressive IRS Fights the Shrinking Tax Gap<\/p>\n

In 2000, when CBS broadcast the first season of the reality TV show Survivor, Richard Hatch became an overnight star.<\/p>\n

People across America knew him as the shirtless islander who had cooked up the perfect strategy to stay the longest on the island and win $1 million.<\/p>\n

After winning Survivor, Hatch\u2019s career took off. The man from Providence, R.I., returned to star in a number of other reality shows, including Survivor: The Amazon \u2013 The Reunion in 2003 and Battle of the Network Reality Stars this year.<\/p>\n

Hatch\u2019s strategy on Survivor and other television shows has been perfect. But he hasn\u2019t had as much luck with the Internal Revenue Service.<\/p>\n

Hatch, now 44, was indicted in September by a grand jury in Rhode Island. The 10-count indictment charges Hatch with tax evasion, tax fraud, and a scheme to defraud a charitable organization.<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the indictment, Hatch hired two accounting firms to prepare his 2000 tax return. Both firms accounted for Hatch\u2019s $1 million in Survivor winnings.<\/p>\n

The first company estimated that Hatch owed $441,501 in taxes. The second estimated $234,807.<\/p>\n

Hatch apparently didn\u2019t like either number. According to the indictment, Hatch instructed one of the firms to put together a tax return that did not include his $1 million in winnings. That firm, authorities say, instructed Hatch that the return was for \u201cinformational\u201d purposes only.<\/p>\n

But the Survivor winner had another strategy: He filed that informational return, the indictment says.<\/p>\n

And the federal government \u2014 surprise, surprise! \u2014 found out.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all.<\/p>\n

While investigating Hatch\u2019s alleged tax<\/a> evasion, the government discovered other alleged crimes. According to the indictment, Hatch also:<\/p>\n

Did not report to the IRS a $27,074 Pontiac Aztec given to him in 2001 as part of his Survivor prize.
\nDid not report $326,540 for appearances on a radio show.
\nAllegedly used $36,500 in charitable donations for personal use.
\nAllegedly used for personal purposes a $10,000 prize from The Weakest Link that was supposed to go to charity.
\nRecently convicted, Hatch faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each of the 10 counts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Knowledge is protection when the IRS is involved. I'm Darrin Mish, a tax attorney in Tampa with 32 years of experience representing taxpayers nationwide. Here's what I want you to understand. More Aggressive IRS Fights the Shrinking Tax Gap In 2000, when CBS broadcast the first season of the reality TV show Survivor, Richard Hatch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[591],"tags":[135],"class_list":["post-21266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irs-news","tag-tax-evasion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21266"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28531,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21266\/revisions\/28531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}