If You Have Questions About That $75,328.80 Stephen Moore Owes The IRS, Ask His Wife

Trump’s presumed Fed nominee Stephen Moore is a fan of lower taxes.

And when it comes to reducing your tax burden, there are two things you can do.

Option one involves marking time between Republican tax overhauls by breathlessly expounding on the relative merits of tax cuts to anyone stupid enough to give you an audience.

Option two is far simpler and involves simply not paying the taxes the IRS says you owe.

Moore, apparently, does both.

According to a federal tax lien filed in the circuit court for Montgomery County, Maryland, in January of last year, Moore owes the IRS $75,328.80 for unpaid taxes during 2014.

Naturally, this isn’t Moore’s fault.

See, Stephen really – really – wants to settle this, but he’s mired in a Kafkaesque  bureaucracy that won’t let him pay. Or something.

“[I’m] eager to reach an agreement”, Stephen said in a statement, adding the following:

For several years I have been working through a dispute with the IRS, attempting to be returned what my attorneys and accountant believe were tax overpayments of tens of thousands of dollars.

Pressed to explain further, Moore referred questions to his wife, Anne Carey, who said the whole thing started “with a deduction on Moore’s 2014 tax return in which he accidentally claimed the sum of his alimony and child-support payments to his former wife, when only alimony is deductible.”

Then, Stephen moved, and as such “never received” any correspondence from the IRS when they audited his return.

And it gets better, if you can believe it.

According to Carey, the couple has paid the IRS too much over the past several years and they figure recent overpayments sum to “about $50,000”, an amount they expect to be refunded in connection with their 2018 return.

As to whether Moore intends to pay the lien, the answer would appear to be yes, but Carey says they “will continue to press their dispute with the IRS.”

Ideally – and this is just us positing a hypothetical best case scenario for Stephen – the IRS will refund him the $50,000 in overpaid taxes and then, once he commandeers the Fed and cuts rates deep into NIRP, he can take out a loan for the other $25,328.80 he owes the government at a rate of negative 20%.

Finally, Carey wants you to know that Trump’s Fed nominee did not engage in “an attempt at defrauding the U.S. government.”

Bad news, Stephen: If you haven’t attempted to defraud the US government at some point in your life, you’re not a good fit for team Trump. So I suppose you won’t be getting that Fed seat after all.