photo by: Steven Allen Adams

The IRS has placed tax liens on properties owned by U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, including The Greenbrier Resort, until more than $8 million in back taxes are paid.

CHARLESTON — The ability of companies owned by former governor Jim Justice to pay taxes was a constant issue during his two terms leading West Virginia, but those issues have now followed Justice to the U.S. Senate.

Over the weekend, Politico reported that Justice — the owner of more than 100 businesses, including the historic Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs — owes more than $8 million in unpaid taxes to the IRS along with his wife, current state Board of Education member Cathy Justice.

The two tax liens were filed with the Greenbrier County Clerk’s Office on Oct. 2 and span debts accumulated over the past 16 years, from $3.1 million owed in tax year 2009 to $10.9 million owed as recently as tax year 2022.

According to the IRS, a federal tax lien gives the IRS a legal claim against property owned by the taxpayer over nonpayment of tax debts. Paying off past tax debts releases the lien within 30 days of satisfying the tax debt. Until then, the lien attaches to all the taxpayers’ assets and any future assets.

IRS tax liens can affect credit and the ability to receive future loans. Even filing bankruptcy does not absolve a taxpayer of such liens.

While the two IRS liens are against Justice and his wife, the IRS has gone after Justice for past tax debts by his businesses. In 2021, the IRS filed several notices of federal tax liens against the Justice-owned properties. One of those liens was against the Greenbrier Hotel Corp. for $395,722 for the first quarter of the 2018 tax period. The lien was due to The Greenbrier Resort not remitting payroll taxes for its employees to the federal government.

A request for comment from U.S. Sen. Justice was not returned Tuesday. But speaking to Politico Monday, Justice said the matter was being worked out.

“I think the bottom line, the whole thing is we have a dispute,” said Justice, R-W.Va. “I think they owe me a whole lot more money than I owe them.”

Politico’s reporting follows additional tax liens placed on Justice-owned businesses by the West Virginia Tax Division in August and September with the Greenbrier County Clerk’s Office against Justice’s Greenbrier Hotel Corp. and the Greenbrier Sporting Club. The total tax liens come to more than $1.3 million.

In Raleigh County, nearly 400 lots at the Justice-owned Glade Springs Resort are on the auction block at the end of this month according to WV MetroNews due to a foreclosure sale by the local homeowner’s association. Attorneys for Justice Holdings have filed for a writ of prohibition to halt the sale. And the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported at the beginning of October that the Justice family owed more $850,000 in Greenbrier County for delinquent property taxes.

These issues mark a long history of Justice and his family-owned businesses running into tax problems or non-payment of large debts. The Greenbrier Resort was nearly on the auction block in 2024 after a Justice creditor – Beltway Capital/McCormick 101 – declared a $20 million loan balance transferred to the company from JPMorgan Chase Bank in default. That loan was bought by Fortress Investment Group, which is owned by a sovereign wealth fund controlled by the United Arab Emirates.

According to Justice’s most recent U.S. Senate financial disclosure report, Justice reported 139 assets between him and his wife valued between $335.2 million and more than $1.8 billion combined. Twenty of those assets were valued at more than $50 million each, including the Greenbrier Hotel Corp. Justice reported earning between $12,407 and $32,000 from those assets.

Daughter Jill Justice manages Justice’s hospitality businesses, such as the Greenbrier. But the bulk of Justice’s businesses focused on coal, agriculture, and real estate are managed by his son, Jay Justice. But Jim Justice maintains majority control of his business empire.

Justice reported in his financial disclosure between $35.9 million and more than $151.8 million in liabilities. These include between $26.6 million and $56.3 million in on-demand lines of credit from five Justice-owned companies, and between $7 million and more than $85 million in judgments, though Justice’s report severely underestimates these judgments.

For example, Justice’s report only reports “more than $50,000,000” in a judgment with Virginia-based Carter Bank and Trust. But according to Carter Bank’s most recent quarterly report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Justice still owed $235.5 million to the bank as of the end of June. Justice entered a second deal with Carter Bank last year after seeking more than $301 million plus interest and attorney fees.

Not listed on Justice’s financial disclosure report at all was the approximately $700 million in loan guarantees to the now-defunct Greensill Capital, now owed to the GLAS Trust Co. acting as note trustee. The noteholders include Credit Suisse and its sub-funds.