On June 18, 2026, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced that comedian Carlos Mencia (aka Ned Arnel Holness) has been charged with 12 counts of failing to file tax returns between 2019 and 2024. Last Thursday morning, Mencia was arrested at his home in Encino, California.
Six of the counts are for failing to file personal income tax returns. The other six are for failing to file corporate income tax returns relating to a corporation connected to Mencia.
Mencia has been released on bail and has recently pled not guilty on all counts.
Mencia rose to stardom in the 2000s. He got acting roles and comedy specials with HBO and Comedy Central. He even had his own comedy show, “Mind of Mencia,” which lasted from 2005 to 2008.
But in 2005, Mencia had a very public beef with Joe Rogan, who accused him of stealing jokes from other comedians.
While Mencia continued doing stand-up comedy work, with rare acting roles, he was no longer in the public spotlight.
This case is being handled by the newly established Business Tax Fraud Unit. Last month, Hochman’s office set up this unit to more aggressively prosecute tax fraud cases at the state level. He says the unit was created because neither the state attorney general’s office nor local district attorneys routinely handled tax prosecution cases. Prior to becoming the district attorney, Hochman was a longtime tax attorney. He worked as an assistant U.S. attorney general for the Tax Division of the Department of Justice in 2008. In addition, he was a partner at Hochman, Salkin, Rettig, Toscher & Perez (now Hochman, Salkin, Toscher & Perez after Charles Rettig became the IRS Commissioner) in addition to other major law firms.
In California, when a taxpayer does not file a tax return, it is usually resolved without criminal charges. The state’s income tax agency, known as the Franchise Tax Board (FTB), will send a letter informing the taxpayer that a tax return is missing and it must be filed immediately. If the taxpayer does not respond, eventually the FTB will issue its own tax return and input an income amount based on the average income of people in the same line of work.
In most cases, the income is inflated and the taxpayer gets no deductions or credits. So the inflated tax bill will incentivize the taxpayer to file the return to lower his or her tax bill.
If the taxpayer still refuses to pay the tax due, the FTB will resort to bank levies and wage garnishments of up to 25% of their pay. In almost all cases, this will cripple the taxpayer’s finances enough that they will try to work something out with the FTB.
According to the DA’s office, the FTB mailed 78 demand notices to Mencia’s residence during the periods in question, informing him of his obligation to file tax returns and advising him that no returns had been received.
Mencia is on the California Franchise Tax Board’s list of top 500 tax delinquencies in both the personal and corporate income categories.
So how did Mencia’s tax case turn into a criminal case? In many cases, the FTB will try to resolve the case civilly but in extreme cases will refer the matter to their Criminal Investigation Bureau. The factors that result in a referral are not made public.
One of the issues in this case is how much tax Mencia actually owes. Mencia allegedly failed to report approximately $8.7 million in personal income and corporate income tax over tax years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024: approximately $3.3 million in personal income and approximately $5.4 million in corporate income. He also allegedly owes over $300,000 in taxes to the state of California: approximately $267,594 in personal income taxes and approximately $35,117 in corporate income taxes.
Assuming these numbers came from the FTB’s own determination, if Mencia were to prepare and file the missing tax returns, the income and tax numbers could end up being very different. According to Mencia’s IMDB profile, he had very few television gigs. While he may have made the bulk of his money doing stand-up comedy work and from royalties and other sources unknown to the public, he has long since passed his public peak. So one may wonder whether Mencia’s numbers add up to what the FTB thinks he made.
But even if his taxes end up being much lower than what the government contends, it will not negate the criminal tax evasion charges.
For those who have not filed their tax returns and do not want to end up like Mencia, the obvious solution is to file the tax returns as soon as possible. Do not procrastinate but at the same time, do not rush yourself to the point where you could file an erroneous return. Lastly, if a tax agency is contacting you, don’t wait until the 78th letter before you do something.
Mencia is now back in the spotlight, although not in the way he hoped. Hopefully he will get this resolved without jail time, learn from this, and use this experience to make some original jokes.
Steven Chung is a tax attorney in Los Angeles, California. He helps people with basic tax planning and resolve tax disputes. He is also sympathetic to people with large student loans. He can be reached via email at stevenchungatl@gmail.com. Or you can connect with him on Twitter (@stevenchung) and connect with him on LinkedIn.
The post Carlos Mencia Faces Criminal Charges Over Unfiled California Tax Returns appeared first on Above the Law.
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