Beyonce performing live. Photo Credit: Raph_PH
Amid reports that she’s being ordered to cough up about $2.7 million worth of allegedly owed taxes and penalties, Beyoncé is reportedly preparing to double down on her claims in a months-long IRS dispute.
These newest developments in the high-profile tax-bill showdown just recently came to light in multiple reports, after the Houston-born artist in mid-April petitioned the U.S. Tax Court for the redetermination of a notice of deficiency she’d received from the IRS in January.
According to Beyoncé’s filing disputing the allegedly owed $2.7 million payment, tax authorities specifically claimed an $805,850 deficiency for 2018 (on top of a 20 percent penalty of the sum, $161,170) as well as a $1,442,747 deficiency and a corresponding $288,549.40 penalty for 2019.
Within the same document, Beyonce and her team expressed the belief that the “erroneous determinations” behind the multimillion-dollar bill included an alleged Schedule 3 royalties omission of $1,449 in 2018.
More pressingly, the relevant tax officials erred in disallowing $761,455 in claimed Schedule C “other expenses” and $473,738 in “legal and professional services,” besides an $868,766 itemized deduction for a “charitable contribution carryover,” according to the filing.
Moving beyond these and a number of other alleged erroneous determinations, Beyoncé and her counsel in the petition further maintained that if a tax payment is in fact owed, “the accuracy-related penalty” described above shouldn’t apply, because the artist “has acted reasonably and in good faith.”
Then, in a June answer to the deficiency appeal, the IRS refuted Beyonce’s claims and requested “that the relief sought in the petition be denied” and that its own determination “be in all respects approved.”
Bearing in mind the details surrounding the roughly eight-month dispute, several outlets are reporting that Beyonce has been ordered to provide the sum in question sooner rather than later.
It’s unclear whether said reports have resulted from a new filing, though at the time of this writing, it didn’t appear that any such document had been publicly released or shared with the media as of late.
For instance, the “I’m That Girl” act, who in June inked a Renaissance Tour merch deal with Amazon Music, “will soon be expected to pay the IRS $2.7 million,” VIBE has claimed.
On the other hand, Warner Music’s HipHopDX has reported that the 32-time Grammy winner is “planning to continue to contest the ruling” and won’t have to front a portion or all of the sum at hand “until the final judgment from the federal court is handed down.”
In any event, it’ll be worth monitoring the tax-bill showdown moving forward. Separately, Spanish authorities in late July reportedly targeted Shakira with a second tax fraud investigation, as the Colombia native continues to fend off initial claims of failing to pay €14.5 million (currently $15.66 million) in owed taxes.
