Two candidates for state offices have active state tax liens filed against them for amounts that range from about $5,000 to nearly $14,000, according to state records.
State House of Representatives candidate Glenn Barnes of Pine Bluff has three liens filed against him for a total amount of $13,946.72, and state Sen. Matt McKee, R-Pearcy, has one lien filed against him for $5,014.02, based on state Department of Finance and Administration records provided on Aug. 8 in response to an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
This newspaper provided a list of candidates for state and federal offices to the Finance Department and filed a public records request on July 25 seeking a list of the candidates who have state tax liens and how much is owed on the liens.
A lien is a legal claim or hold on a piece of property for security for payment of a debt. It has the same force as a judgment issued by the circuit court, where liens are filed.
According to the Finance Department’s records, Glenn Barnes and his wife, Ladawn Willis-Barnes, have three state tax liens filed against them including:
An income tax lien in the amount of $6,958.13 for the tax periods ending Dec. 31, 2012, and Dec. 31, 2013. The lien was filed Nov. 19, 2015, with the Jefferson County circuit clerk.
An income tax lien in the amount of $3,594.76 for the tax period ending Dec. 31, 2014. The lien was filed March 16, 2016, with the Jefferson County circuit clerk.
An income tax lien in the amount of $3,393.83 for the tax period ending Dec. 31, 2011. The lien was filed Feb. 4, 2016, with the Jefferson County circuit clerk.
In response to the public records request, Assistant State Revenue Commissioner Paul Gehring said in a letter dated Aug. 8 that Barnes’ current balance on the three income tax liens totals $7,922.82.
Barnes, a pastor at Park Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Pine Bluff, said last week that “I have a payment plan with the state and I pay every month.”
He said he expects to pay off what he owes the state “within a year’s time.”
Barnes said he also has a payment plan to pay off what he owes in federal income taxes, and he expects to pay off those taxes by March 2025.
In February, Barnes said that pastors believed for many years that they were exempt from paying income taxes, so he hired the Bailey & Thompson Tax Accounting firm in Little Rock several years ago and said that he has been paying his state and federal income taxes since then.
At the time, he said he owed about $50,000 in federal income taxes and was focusing on finishing paying off this year his outstanding federal incomes taxes and then was looking to pay off his state income taxes owed in about a year or so.
But Barnes said last week that he subsequently learned that he should be paying off what he owes in federal and state taxes at the same time and that’s what he is currently doing.
In the March 5 Democratic primary, Barnes handily defeated Kanisher Caldwell of Pine Bluff to win the party’s nomination in state House District 65. State Rep. Vivian Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, currently represents state House District 65 and is running for mayor of Pine Bluff in the Nov. 5 general election.
Barnes is unopposed in the general election.
The state Department of Finance and Administration records show that the state tax lien filed against Matthew McKee and his wife, Nikki McKee, is an income tax lien in the amount of $5,014.02 for the tax periods ending Dec. 31, 2019, Dec. 31, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2021.
The lien was filed on May 23 of this year with the Garland County circuit court clerk.
In response to this newspaper’s public records request, Gehring said in his letter dated Aug. 8 that McKee’s current balance on the tax lien is $4,914.22.
Last week, McKee said that “I just got behind.
“We have a payment plan,” he said.
McKee said he is an owner of a small residential remodeling business and has four children at home and that he “just got a little behind” on paying state income taxes.
“We are doing everything we can to get caught up,” he said.
Arkansans are experiencing inflation like people across the nation and “I know exactly how they feel,” McKee said.
He has served in the state Senate representing Senate District 6 since 2023 and is unopposed in the Nov. 5 general election. He is a former Garland County justice of the peace.
In the 2022 general election, McKee handily defeated Democratic candidate Courtney McKee of Royal in Senate District 6 after ousting state Sen. Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, in the primary election.
The number of state tax liens filed against candidates for state and federal offices in Arkansas have ranged over the years and the amount of their state tax liens has ranged widely.
For example, six candidates for state and federal offices in the 2022 general election had active state tax liens ranging from a bit above $1,000 to slightly more than $80,000, state records showed at the time.
Some of the candidates said prior to the 2022 general election that they hoped to resolve the active state tax liens soon, and some were in the process of paying back their taxes under a payment plan.
In 2022, the candidates with active state tax liens included one seeking a U.S. Senate seat, one running for a prosecuting attorney post and four vying for state House of Representative seats in the general election based on records provided by the state Department of Finance and Administration in 2022 to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. They included three Libertarian candidates, two Democrats and a candidate for a nonpartisan office.
None of those six candidates won in the 2022 general election.