While attending the 2022 Earn Your Leisure Conference, Tyler Perry shared stories about his deficiencies in regard to taxes. He explained how these faults led him to make multiple financial mistakes in the past.
“Money isn’t something that I had, and nobody taught me that taxes had to be paid,” he reportedly said. “I didn’t go to college, but I paid for Harvard many times over in the mistakes that I made.”
To ensure he wouldn’t make any future blunders, the screenwriter hired a team of accountants to audit his financial statements. This auditing process ended up taking way longer than it should have—three years, in fact. After spending a massive amount of money, the 53-year-old’s stress levels began to rise.
“So this audit went on for three years,” he told the conference. “I’m spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in accountants for the audit and I am getting so mad, and so frustrated. ‘Why the h*ll is this going on?’ ‘What is it?’ And what I realized in my frustration is that ‘Wait a minute, there’s something to learn here. Sit back and just see where it goes.'”
Eventually, Perry’s audit comes to an end. The conclusion? The IRS owed him $9 million.
“All my accountants come running, [and] said ‘Oh my God, isn’t that great?’ ‘Isn’t that great?’” Perry told a shocked panel. “I say, ‘No, h*ll no!’ ‘How did you miss me paying $9 million?’ So, I had to stop going to H&R Block for my taxes at some point.”
He hasn't been the only entertainer who has dealt with tax struggles, but Tyler Perry is one of few who actually received money from the IRS.