Celebrities arelike the rest of us -- they hate paying taxes, too! The difference is that when we mere mortals get caught dodging the IRS, Perez Hilton doesn't blog our names through the mud.

The latest national treasure to fall victim to a public personal-finance shaming is actor Nicolas Cage who, according to Peoplemagazine (perhaps the most reliable source for fact-checked celebrity gossip), owes the IRS $6 million in unpaid taxes from 2007 and more than $350,000 for back taxes from 2002 to 2004.

Cage's financial woes, according to his suit, stem from bad financial advice -- speculative real estate investments and shoddy accounting -- from the person who was his business manager from 2001 to 2008.

Cue $20 million lawsuit
Cage is suing his former business manager, Samuel J. Levin, on charges of mismanaging the actor's assets and gouging him for several million dollars in management fees -- Levin's 5% cut of Cage's gross earnings.

It's so hard to find good help these days: Cage's suit against Levin cites professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. According to the lawsuit: "He [Cage] is now forced to sell major assets and investments at a significant loss and is faced with huge tax liabilities because of Levin's incompetence, misrepresentations, and recklessness." The biggest boo-boo: Failure to file his client's income taxes.

Sure, it's tempting to "tsk-tsk" Cage about failing to keep tabs on the hired help. But even due diligence might not have saved him from financial calamity. According to the Huffington Post, Levin had no disciplinary actions against him in the 25 years he has been a licensed certified public accountant in California.

Of course, neither did Bernie Madoff.

I'll pause here for dramatic effect.

The mother of all celebrity yard sales
Now the star of Leaving Las Vegas(for which he won an Oscar), National Treasure, Con Air, Adaptation, Moonstruck, and my personal favorite, Raising Arizona, is having a celebrity-sized yard sale. Literally.

To drum up cash to pay his tax tab, Cage is offering a real estate free-for-all. Well, not free, exactly, but according to CNN, some of the choice items up for offer include:

An early-bird shopper already snagged one choice item: Cage sold his Bavarian castle -- 28 rooms on 395 wooded acres; needs renovations -- to German lawyer Konrad Wilfurth for $2.5 million. Continued...