Senator Jim Justice, a Republican and former governor of West Virginia, has agreed to pay over $5m (£3.9m) in long-overdue taxes, just hours after being sued by US tax authorities.
The first-term senator and his wife reached the settlement following a lawsuit accusing the couple of having “neglected or refused to make full payment” on taxes from 2009.
Justice, who led the state from 2017 until he took office as a senator in 2025, entered politics after decades running his family’s coal empire, which controlled dozens of mines across several states.
At a media briefing in October, Justice called the tax assessment against him, which was levied in 2015, “politically motivated”.
“It’s just a situation that big companies deal with all the time,” he said. “You saw all the stuff that President Trump dealt with.”
“At the end of the day,” he added, “I’d say just let it be and see how it all plays out.”
The BBC has contacted the senator’s office and his lawyer for comment following the settlement.
In the lawsuit filed on Monday, the Internal Revenue Service said the Justices had accrued $5.16m in back taxes and interest. Under the agreement, the Justices will repay the full amount, plus additional interest.
The filing did not specify a timeline for repayment.
Justice, who owns dozens of businesses that include coal and agricultural operations, had a net worth of up to $1.9bn until 2021, according to Forbes’ estimation. But by 2025, Forbes estimated that had gone down to “less than zero”.
The senator and his family are facing a series of other financial pressures.
CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reported they are contending with $1.4m in liens (a right to keep possession of property belonging to another person until a debt is discharged) over unpaid sales taxes tied to their historic resort, The Greenbrier, and its sporting club.
The IRS has also filed more than $8m in additional liens against the couple for other unpaid personal taxes, the network said.
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