I thought we did away with debtor's prison

[Xithras]

39. It may have just been ignorance.

Keep in mind that Lauryn Hill dropped out of the music scene for years, and that the charges surround the years that she wasn't an active musician. She went from a music star with accountants and assistants who dealt with taxes for her, to living in a fairly modest house with her mother and children in New Jersey. Her initial excuse that she didn't know the rules, or what she had to pay taxes on, is actually pretty plausible. She'd never had to do that sort of thing in her life.

The sentence is fair. Three months will send a message to other evaders without being cruel. She did pay the bill, after all.

There's a difference between people who break the law to be malicious or greedy, and those who break the law out of ignorance, and each should be punished appropriately. I tend to think that Hill falls into the latter group, and considering that she was facing years in prison, a few months is a slap on the wrist and is fairly appropriate.