Beyoncé Is Fighting Back Against a $2.7 Million Tax Bill
Celebrities, they’re just like us! They get up in the morning, brush their teeth, and fight the IRS to pay as little in taxes as they can—even Beyoncé.
The “Energy” singer filed a petition on April 17 disputing a handful of determinations that landed her with a whopping $2.7 million tax bill, which she seems to be sure includes a number of errors, according to documents obtained by Page Six. Beyoncé was served with a Notice of Deficiency on January 18, 2023 that outlined unpaid taxes and penalties owed for 2018 and 2019, and Queen Bey is fighting back against what she believes to be errors on the part of the IRS—including their disallowing millions of dollars in charitable contributions over those tax years.
Beyoncé poses at The 59th GRAMMY Awards Dan MacMedan/WireImage
Among those contributions was one specific payment of $868,766 made to an unknown charitable organization in 2018, which Beyoncé listed as an itemized deduction and the IRS disallowed for whatever reason. Taking this and other charitable contributions off her itemized deductions appears to have changed her tax status significantly, as the IRS is now claiming that Beyoncé owes an additional $805,850 in taxes and $161,170 in penalties for the 2018 tax year, and $1,442,747 in taxes plus $288,549.40 in penalties for the 2019 tax year. Interest is also owed on these unpaid taxes, bringing the total owed by the Grammy-winning artist to $2.7 million.
The documents filed by Beyoncé’s legal team suggest that she’s confident errors have been made in this assessment, and she’s also requesting that the penalties be waived since she “has acted reasonably and in good faith.” The singer’s net worth is $450 million as of Forbes‘s last assessment in June 2022, and her incredibly successful Renaissance tour is expected to bring in $275 million or more. Beyoncé may be capable of affording these bills, but she won’t pay what she feels she doesn’t owe without fighting it first.
Source: Robb Report
