Courts

At This Point, Get Clarence Thomas For Tax Evasion

Get buddy up out of here.

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Clarence Thomas RVFunny thing about being a member of the highest court — you get to break whichever financial laws you want! At least, that’s what a friend told Clarence Thomas one day and he’s been running with it ever since. As Thomas’s financial shenanigans have come to light, Chief Justice John Roberts hasn’t really said much in the way of condemning his behavior or demanding actions that line up with redressing wrongs done. But you know who has a great reputation for doing that? The IRS.

In 1999, Anthony Welters lent Thomas a considerable cash sum to buy an RV. It was loaned on very generous terms with an understanding that the balance would be paid by 2004. Then 2008 came. At that point, Welters decided to forgive the debt. But you know what the IRS considers forgiven debts? That’s right — income!  And if Clarence doesn’t make good on that income he failed to report, they might come for him. It also doesn’t help matters that the numbers given don’t make much sense. From the New York Times:

In a contemporaneous note to Justice Thomas, summarized by the investigators, Mr. Welters said he was doing so because the justice’s many years of “interest only” payments now exceeded the purchase price of the bus. For that reason, Mr. Welters told Justice Thomas, he did not feel it was appropriate to continue to accept payments, even though he had the right to them.

But Mr. Welters’s math doesn’t add up: Even if Justice Thomas had made all the scheduled annual interest-only payments, that would only amount to a little over $180,000 — nearly $87,000 short of the purchase price. What’s more, the only proof of payment that Mr. Welters was able to provide to investigators was a copy of a single canceled check, dated December 2000, for $20,042 — the amount of a single interest payment.

If we take as a given that Thomas made at least one $20k payment to Welters — because that’s how it looks:

There’s still the matter of the compounding interest. When Welters decided to stop collecting, the principal — along with the interest — all becomes taxable income. Maybe that’s why Thomas has been speaking at so many FedSoc fundraisers — you can play with the Constitution all you want, but you better not play with the IRS.

Justice Thomas’s R.V. Loan Was Forgiven, Senate Inquiry Finds [New York Times]

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Earlier: Thomas Responded To His Paper Trail Of Law Breaking With ‘My Friends Said It Was Okay.’ We Should Expect Better Of Our Judiciary.
Clarence Thomas RV Financed By Rich Health Care Executive In Least Shocking Development Ever

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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