Earlier this month the IRS placed a $70,000 tax lien against MSNBC host Melissa Harris Perry, who is perhaps best known for wearing tampon earrings and mocking Mitt Romney’s black grandchild. The lien seems to have come as a surprise to Harris-Perry, who once tweeted that she would pay her taxes “with a smile.”
MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry and her husband, James Perry, owe about $70,000 in delinquent taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, the Winston-Salem Journal reported Thursday.
The IRS filed a tax lien on the Perrys on April 6 for the outstanding debt, which is from 2013. In an email to the Winston-Salem Journal, Harris-Perry said she was unaware of the tax lien but knew about the debt and that she and her husband had paid $21,721 toward the total owed. She said personal crises had caused them to pay off the debt slower than expected.
“We were aware that we would continue to need to work to pay off the 2013 debt,” Harris-Perry wrote in the email.
Harris-Perry hosts MSNBC's "Melissa Harris-Perry" show on weekend mornings and is also presidential chair at Wake Forest University, where she attended college.
Harris-Perry is now the second MSNBC anchor to be caught not paying their fair share. Al Sharpton also reportedly owes more than $3 million, according to The New York Times.