What was Lauryn Hill charged with? Singer spent 3 months in prison in 2013

Eight-time Grammy winner Lauryn Hill was sentenced to three months imprisonment and an additional three months of house confinement in 2013 for failing to file her tax returns for five years and not reporting more than $2.3 million in income. In addition to the full payment of taxes and interest, Hill was also charged with a penalty of $60,000.

Besides her royalties from singing and acting, the 49-year-old was the owner of four S corporations. According to prosecutors, Hill received over $1.8 million in income from these sources from 2005 to 2007. However, she failed to file her tax returns for those years.

For the years 2008 and 2009, she didn't file her federal returns and her outstanding tax liability to the state of New Jersey, amounting to a total tax loss of $1,006,517 on an income of around $2.3 million.

In her defense, the Grammy winner compared her prosecution to slavery, stating:

“I was put into a system I didn’t know the nature of. I’m a child of former slaves. I got into an economic paradigm and had that imposed on me. I sold 50 million units … now I’m up here paying a tax debt. If that’s not likened to slavery, I don’t know what is.”

Hill also explained that she had always wanted to pay her taxes diligently, but couldn't do so because of the sudden hiatus from her musical career. The Fugees rapper disappeared from the public radar after the chart-busting success of her first debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Debuting atop the U.S. Billboard 200, the album bagged five Grammys including Album of the Year.

During her hearing, Hill told U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo that she lived a very modest life, devoid of luxuries. The Fugees rapper claimed that most of her wealth went to other people, and she hardly had time for herself and her children. According to Hill, she wanted to pay her taxes, it was just a question of when.

Despite the explanation, the judge reminded the Grammy winner that citizens didn't have the right to choose when to pay taxes.

During her prison sentence, Lauryn Hill was housed at the Federal Correctional Institution of Danbury with the prison's general population. Inside the correctional facility, prisoners lived in open dormitories and worked jobs like maintenance, food service, cleaning facilities, and the like.

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Lauryn Hill drops new single just 24 hours after prison release

Lauryn Hill (Image via Getty Photo by Frans Schellekens/Redferns)

Lauryn Hill's prison sentence started on July 8, 2013, but was released a few days before the stipulated three months owing to good behavior. However, she still had to serve three months of home confinement and an additional nine months of supervised release. To mark her release, the Fugees rapper released a new track, Consumerism within a day of her getting out of jail.

The track is a compilation of all the '-isms' in life, like narcissism, and skepticism woven together by Lauryn Hill's lyrical prowess. Posting a stream of the track on Tumblr, Hill announced her latest project, called Letters From Exile. Giving a brief introduction to her new project, Hill wrote:

"[i]nspiration of this sort is a kind of news in and of itself, and often times contains an urgency that precedes what happens. I couldn’t imagine it not being relevant. Messages like these I imagine find their audience, or their audience finds them, like water seeking it’s [sic] level."

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At present, the pseudo video of Consumerism has racked up over half a million views on YouTube.