Under the federal law of the United States of America, tax evasion or tax fraud, is the purposeful illegal attempt of a taxpayer to evade payment of a tax imposed by the federal government. Conviction of tax evasion may result in fines and imprisonment.[1]
So now you have shifted the goal posts to the definition of a specific crime related to not paying taxes. The number of people convicted of these crimes is quite small and they are carefully defined in black letter law. Most people who send in a return simply get an audit, then they get a bill with interest and penalties. So your broad brush statement that "if you don't pay taxes rich or poor you go to jail" is total bullshit. In fact your very examples in support of your (changed)premise prove that. The tax laws have a simple goal, to maximize revenue. If you go and read some of the cases on tax fraud they are very, very different than the case of the average person who does not pay his taxes.
House checks did not bounce; they were honored because the House Bank provided overdraft protection to its account holders
So you mean that rich and powerful people do get treated differently?
Oh, and if you look at the history of those events, if Gingrich had not made an issue out of it it would have gone on for another decade unchanged. And the issue he made of it was political, not based on morality or ethics. Sorry, you fail again.