Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., has repeatedly fallen behind in paying taxes on personal property items and real estate in recent years, records reviewed by NBC News show.
Just last week, Manchin paid nearly $700 he owed to Marion County, W.Va., in accumulated back taxes. for the last three years on a pontoon and various trailers. In 2020, Manchin made nearly $630 in back tax payments to the county for taxes he owed on cars, boats and trailers from 2016, 2017 and 2018.
“Like most West Virginians, Senator Manchin has always paid every tax bill he has received in full and any late payment has been promptly rectified as soon as brought to his attention,” a spokesperson for West Virginia said. Manchin in a statement to NBC News.
Sometimes late payments, which are detailed in records going back to 2009, were made within days of their due date. Others were made months, if not years, later. In some cases they were assessed penalties or other accrued interest payments.
“Joe Manchin voted to raise taxes on West Virginians under the so-called Reducing Inflation Act, but he refuses to pay his own,” Senate Republican National Committee spokesman Tate Mitchell said in a statement. “Manchin is a complete hypocrite.”
Marion County Clerk Julie Kincaid, a Democrat, said the missed payments were “grossly exaggerated,” pointing to the small amount of money she owed.
“I’m pretty sure this is something that just hasn’t caught your attention or just slipped under the radar,” she said. “It’s probably one of those mountain situations out of a molehill. I mean, I get it, he’s very high profile.”
Fiscal woes came to light as Manchin potentially faces a brutal re-election campaign, though he has yet to commit to running for another Senate term. If he runs, he’ll likely face Republican Gov. Jim Justice or Republican Rep. Alex Mooney.
Manchin is not the only one with fiscal problems.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who along with his wife, journalist Connie Schultz, has been seven times late paying the tax bill on their Cleveland home since buying it in 2013, according to documents kept by the treasurer from Cuyahoga County and reviewed by NBC. News earlier this year. In response to questions from NBC News, Brown’s campaign manager, Rachel Petri, said the senator and Schultz had just paid a $390 fine stemming from their most recent late payment.
Like Manchin, Brown is embroiled in a tough re-election battle that is one of the main goals of Republicans.
Meanwhile, shortly after launching his Senate campaign in May, Justice’s coal business empire was sued by the Department of Justice, which is seeking more than $5 million in unpaid environmental fines and other past-due charges. That followed an April ruling by a federal appeals court that their companies must pay $2.5 million in fines issued by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Justice campaign manager Roman Stauffer did not address the content of the lawsuit in a statement after the Justice Department action, saying it had only come because Democrats were “panicking” about the governor’s polls.
