Stephen Moore, President Trump’s pick for the Federal Reserve Board, disputed in an interview Friday that he owes the IRS $75,000 and expressed frustration that it has been taking years to resolve the matter with the tax-collection agency.
A federal tax lien was issued against Moore last year for more than $75,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties, according to court records. The lien relates to the 2014 tax year.
{mosads}Moore told Fox News’s Neil Cavuto on Friday that he underpaid his taxes in 2014 by $6,000 because he took a “mistaken deduction,” and then overpaid his taxes to the IRS by $40,000 to $50,000 in 2015.
“They owe us money, we don’t owe them,” he said.
Earlier this week, Moore’s wife told Bloomberg that Moore had accidentally deducted both his child support and alimony to his ex-wife when he could only deduct the latter. The IRS disallowed the deduction for both the child support and alimony amounts.
Moore also said in the Fox News interview that he and his wife has been unable to get the IRS to respond to them.
“We can’t get the auditor to respond,” he said. “It is extraordinarily frustrating, and I bet a lot of people watching the show who have been audited by the IRS have the same frustration.”
“We want a resolution,” Moore added. “We want to present our evidence. We think we’re crystal clear and that we’re right on this, but we just can’t get a resolution and that’s frustrating now because I’m up for this nomination.”
Trump announced last week that he plans to nominate Moore to a seat on the Fed’s board, though he has yet to formally submit the nomination to the Senate.