IRS seeks pay from Buckingham official

The Internal Revenue Service has not forgotten Buckingham County Supervisor Joe N. Chambers Jr.
According to a federal tax lien filed June 15 in the Buckingham Circuit Court clerk’s office, the IRS has renewed its interest in getting Chambers to repay $226,001.44 in personal taxes owed between 2001 and 2004.

Chambers, 62, has a long history of indebtedness to government agencies and businesses. Court records have shown state and federal tax officials have filed liens against him for tens of thousands of dollars.
Chambers, the vice chairman of the Board of Supervisors, did not return a call Monday seeking comment for this story.
It is possible that Chambers has begun repaying his federal debt. Peggy Riley, an IRS spokeswoman, said the information on the lien may be out of date, but the IRS does not release information about individual taxpayers. Taxpayers with a lien can make a payment arrangement or the lien could accrue interest and penalties if the debt isn’t paid, both of which are scenarios that can cause the owed amount to change.
“We won’t update the lien until the whole amount is paid in full,” Riley said.
According to the IRS, a lien is a public notification of creditors that the federal agency has a claim against a person’s current and future property. A lien can harm a person’s credit rating and affect a person’s ability to sign a lease, buy a home, get a loan or sign up for a credit card.

Riley said the IRS could place a lien on someone’s property while trying to collect money from that person. The amount owed can either be determined through an audit or through submitted yet unpaid tax forms. The IRS has the ability to levy, or legally seize, property or money from a person to pay federal taxes, but Riley said liens and levies are chosen as courses of action on a case-by-case basis.
Chambers has been repaying money owed to Buckingham. Christy Christian, the county treasurer, said Monday that Chambers continues to make monthly payments on his outstanding real estate taxes.
Earlier this year, court records showed the IRS had tax liens of $59,544 and $9,019 against Chambers that were assessed in 1999. The IRS has until November to act on the liens, or else the statute of limitations will run its course. The status of those liens was not immediately available Monday.
The federal tax lien refiled in June against Chambers does not need to be refiled until August 2017, which is just more than 10 years from when the IRS assessed his back taxes between 2000 and 2004.

A person can hold public office and have a federal debt, said Matt Abell, assistant manager of election services with the Virginia Board of Elections. If a public official is convicted of a felony and the appeals process has been exhausted, however, he automatically loses his public position.
Chambers is facing a criminal charge of felony larceny of timber, which was handed down by a grand jury in May, in Buckingham Circuit Court. The indictment accuses Chambers of illegally harvesting about 5 acres of timber in September 2007 along Route 601 in the county.
The county’s commonwealth’s attorney, E.M. Wright Jr., previously recused himself from the case. James R. Ennis, a special prosecutor from Prince Edward County, has not returned calls about the status of the case, which has been listed as “continued generally” on online court records for several months.