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The Internal Revenue Service has some bad news for Arizona Cardinals safety Antrel Rolle: He owes the federal government $2.2 million.
According to the IRS, Rolle understated his income by about 50 percent on filings from 2005 and 2006, his first two seasons in the NFL.
In 2005, Rolle reported $669,000 in taxable income to the IRS, according to court documents uncovered by Forbes.com, and $3.2 million in 2006. The IRS, however, thinks Rolle’s taxable income for those two years was $2.15 million in 2005 and $3.2 million in 2006 and the agency is hittin’ up Rolle for some back pay plus interest and penalties.
The court documents say Rolle claimed “nonexistent or unlikely addresses, huge deductions for a personally run executive business, and hard-to-locate churches listed as recipients of big cash gifts, with the amounts and descriptions of these donations changing.”
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Rolle, slated to make $8.1 million this season because of an incentive-packed rookie contract, filed a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming the agency “violated the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, denied him due process, and failed to treat him in a fair, professional, and courteous manner.”
That’s often the case when you “fail” to pay your taxes, Antrel.
Rolle, selected to play in Sunday’s Pro Bowl game, could be in some trouble with the NFL, too.
Roger Goodell, the league’s “tough on crime” commissioner, implemented a personal conduct policy for NFL employees following the Michael Vick dog-massacres that already has nailed the likes of Pacman Jones, the late Chris Henry, and Tank Johnson.
Rolle didn’t exactly shoot up a strip club or murder innocent dogs, so it will be interesting to see if Goodell extends the policy to the “white-collar” world.
