--- title: Hunter Biden Pleads Guilty to Federal Tax Charges description: Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax fraud and evasion charges related to failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 through 2019. canonical: https://time.com/7017772/hunter-biden-tax-evasion-trial/ author: Nik Popli article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-09-05T11:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-19T11:46:08.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Hunter Biden Pleads Guilty to Federal Tax Charges og:description: Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax fraud and evasion charges related to failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 through 2019. og:url: https://time.com/7017772/hunter-biden-tax-evasion-trial/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ceb7fc07156ea4c/698a5a9db21a9c50f950a6d2/GettyImages-2156356245.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Hunter Biden Gun Trial Continues In Delaware og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hunter Biden Pleads Guilty to Federal Tax Charges twitter:description: Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax fraud and evasion charges related to failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 through 2019. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ceb7fc07156ea4c/698a5a9db21a9c50f950a6d2/GettyImages-2156356245.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Hunter Biden Pleads Guilty to Federal Tax Charges  by [Nik Popli](https://time.com/author/nik-popli/)  ## Nik Popli Staff Writer Updated: Jan 19, 2026 11:46 AM UTCPublished: Sep 5, 2024 11:00 AM UTC  Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, arrives to the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building on June 06, 2024 in Wilmington, Delaware. Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, arrives to the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building on June 06, 2024 in Wilmington, Delaware.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images  by [Nik Popli](https://time.com/author/nik-popli/)  ## Nik Popli Staff Writer Updated: Jan 19, 2026 11:46 AM UTCPublished: Sep 5, 2024 11:00 AM UTC Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to all federal charges in his tax evasion case Thursday, avoiding a trial that was expected to be a grueling and costly public spectacle about his profligate spending habits and foreign business deals. After his recent [conviction on felony gun charges](https://time.com/6987280/hunter-biden-guilty-gun-trial/), Biden was facing a second criminal trial in a federal case over allegedly evading taxes on income earned from those foreign deals. The trial was set to begin Thursday with jury selection in a Los Angeles federal court, but Biden’s lawyers offered a surprise last-minute Alford plea in which he would maintain his innocence but concede there is enough evidence for a conviction. His lawyers backed away from that plan after prosecutors vociferously opposed it, and Biden ultimately pleaded guilty to nine charges related to tax fraud and evasion. Biden, 54, took an open plea, which means his sentencing is up to the judge—in this case, District Judge Mark Scarsi, a Donald Trump appointee—without a prearranged agreement with prosecutors. Sentencing will be on Dec. 16, after November’s presidential election. “With regard to sentencing, there’s no guarantees,” Scarsi said, according to [Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/05/hunter-biden-trial-plea-tax-charges-00177520). [The Washington _Post_ reports](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/05/hunter-biden-alford-guilty-plea-taxes/) that Scarsi told Biden he could face up to 17 years in prison and fines of up to $1.3 million. Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, was charged with failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 through 2019 related to his foreign consultancy work. The indictment outlines nine counts against him, including two felony counts of filing a false return and an additional felony count of tax evasion. He has said that he repaid the government his delinquent taxes. Federal prosecutors, led by Leo Wise and Derek Hines, have laid out a narrative depicting Biden as someone who chose to [spend extravagantly](https://time.com/6986199/hunter-biden-net-worth-estimations/) on drugs, escorts, and fancy cars rather than fulfilling his tax obligations. In the indictment, they allege that he mischaracterized personal expenditures as business deductions, such as college tuition for his children and over $27,000 spent on online pornography. “He describes partying in hotels with a cast of strippers,” Wise said at a previous court hearing. “He chose to pay them, which is fine—it’s America, you can do that. But then he chose to take it as a business deduction." Biden’s defense team, led by attorney Mark Geragos, have argued that his struggles with substance abuse—compounded by personal trauma from the death of his mother and his sister in a 1972 car accident when he was 3 years old and the [death of his brother from cancer](https://time.com/6984630/biden-family-trump-verdict/) in 2015—impaired his ability to manage his finances responsibly. “The DOJ wants to paint a picture of a guy without a care in the world, partying at Chateau Marmont, without giving context as to what from his past may have affected him,” Geragos said at an earlier hearing. Republicans have [long used](https://time.com/6254861/hunter-biden-laptop-investigations-charges/) Biden’s bouts with drug addiction and his business dealings with Burisma, a scandal-plagued Ukrainian energy firm, and CEFC, a now-bankrupt Chinese conglomerate, to try to weaken his dad politically, opening congressional inquiries into Biden’s work in the private sector and investigating whether it had any impact on Joe Biden’s decisions as President or Vice President. But their attempts to portray the Bidens as a “crime family” have [failed](https://time.com/6313452/impeachment-experts-biden-inquiry-weakest-us-history/) to produce evidence implicating Joe Biden in Hunter Biden’s business activities. President Biden hasn’t commented publicly on his son’s tax evasion charges, but has previously said he would not use his presidential powers to pardon him. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre [reiterated](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/05/white-house-biden-wont-pardon-son-00177551) that President Biden will not pardon Hunter, and also said the President wouldn’t try to commute Hunter’s sentence. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7017772/hunter-biden-tax-evasion-trial/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7017772/hunter-biden-tax-evasion-trial/"},"headline":"Hunter Biden Pleads Guilty to Federal Tax Charges","datePublished":"2024-09-05T11:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-01-19T11:46:08.000Z","description":"Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax fraud and evasion charges related to failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 through 2019.","url":"https://time.com/7017772/hunter-biden-tax-evasion-trial/","keywords":["Biden Administration","Explainer","News Desk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ceb7fc07156ea4c/698a5a9db21a9c50f950a6d2/GettyImages-2156356245.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nik Popli","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/nik-popli/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ceb7fc07156ea4c/698a5a9db21a9c50f950a6d2/GettyImages-2156356245.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hunter Biden Gun Trial Continues In Delaware","caption":"Hunter Biden Gun Trial Continues In Delaware","creditText":"Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/biden-administration/","name":"Biden Administration"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7017772/hunter-biden-tax-evasion-trial/","name":"Hunter Biden Pleads Guilty to Federal Tax Charges"}}]}] ```