A Mississippi state representative has pleaded guilty to willfully making a false material statement on a federal income tax return.
Representative Earle Banks, 68, pled guilty in U.S. District Court in Jackson on Wednesday afternoon. According to admissions by Banks, he failed to report over $500,000 of income resulting from the sale of real property.
Banks, a Democrat out of Jackson, also admitted that he was aware of his legal duty to report the additional income and that he willfully failed to report that income to the IRS on a 2018 Form 1040X tax return. He added that the United States Attorney’s Office has sufficient evidence to convict him at trial if he had decided to go to trial instead of pleading guilty.
Banks is scheduled to be sentenced on August 21, 2023, and faces a maximum penalty of three years in prison. A federal district judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The IRS is currently investigating the case.
