Senator agrees to pay over $5 million in back taxes to IRS

WASHINGTON — Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., and his wife have agreed to pay the Internal Revenue Service more than $5 million to cover unpaid taxes from 2009, settling part of a legal fight he has claimed is politically motivated.

The agreement, filed in federal court Monday, came just hours after the IRS sued Justice and his wife, Cathy, accusing them of having “neglected or refused to make full payment” of their taxes for 2009. In the lawsuit, the IRS said that as of early August, the Justices owed over $5.16 million in back taxes and interest from that year.

Under the settlement, the Justices have agreed to pay that amount, plus any additional interest they accrue before the bill is paid in full. The filing, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, did not give a deadline or schedule for payment. The agreement, known as a consent judgment, was still awaiting a judge’s signature Tuesday morning.

A spokesperson for Justice’s Senate office did not respond to a request for comment.

Last month, Justice asserted during a news conference that the 2009 tax assessment against him and his wife, which was levied in 2015, and other assessments since then, were politically motivated. “If you don’t think these are political moves, you’re crazy,” he told reporters. He suggested that President Joe Biden’s administration might have targeted him during his 2024 run for the Senate, but did not offer specifics.

A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment on Justice’s claims. Biden was president when the IRS issued more recent tax assessments against the Justices, but he was the vice president in 2015, when the initial assessment for missed 2009 taxes was issued. He had left the White House by the time the IRS filed tax lien notices against the Justices earlier this year for being in arrears in multiple tax years.

Justice also said that he was pursuing the IRS for what he claimed, without providing evidence, were about $40 million in outstanding tax refunds. He predicted that he and his spouse would ultimately “end up with significantly more dollars from the IRS than what we owe the IRS.” He added: “It’s just a situation we’ve got to go through.”