IRS hands MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, husband $70K tax lien

Earlier this month, the Internal Revenue Service levied a $70,000 tax lien on MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry and her husband.

Harris-Perry, who is also a Presidential Chaired Professor at Wake Forest University, told the Winston-Salem Journal that she was aware of the debt her and James Perry owed. According to the newspaper, Harris-Perry said the pair paid $21,721 of the debt when they filed their taxes Wednesday and have an official payment plan with the IRS.

“We were aware that we would continue to need to work to pay off the 2013 debt,” Harris-Perry said in an email to the Winston-SalemJournal.

The MSNBC host told the Winston-Salem Journal that she plans to pay off the remainder of her debt to the IRS as soon as possible. According to her, she and her husband experienced personal problems that hindered them from paying off the debt sooner.

Harris-Perry is a member of Wake Forest’s Politics and International Affairs department. Previously she was a political science professor at Tulane University in Louisiana.

A tax lien is the federal government’s claim against a person’s property if they have neglected to pay a tax debt, according to the IRS’s website.

In 2013, Harris-Perry said during a segment of her MSNBC show that tax day is a reminder of the so-called gender pay gap.

Harris-Perry is an alumna of Wake Forest, the North Carolina school where she is currently on staff. She is also the director of the Anna Julia Cooper Center, a center on gender, race, and politics at Wake Forest.

Harris-Perry did not respond to an emailed request for comment from Campus Reform.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @K_Schallhorn