Senator Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) leaves the Senate Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Building on October 1, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
West Virginia Senator Jim Justice and his wife Cathy Justice immediately settled a novel lawsuit seeking more than $5.1 million in unpaid federal income taxes over 15 years.
U.S. attorneys have filed with the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice a complaint Monday is trying to collect unpaid debts from 2009.
The filing, filed in the District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, states that both husband and wife received notices of the unpaid amount and that “defendants James C. Justice II and Cathy L. Justice have failed to pay or refused to pay these assessments in full to the United States.”
Shortly after the federal application, the judges filed an application Montag agreed to pay the $5,164,739.75 owed as of August 4, 2025, along with “other additions to the tax thereafter accruing under law until paid in full.”
The Senate Judiciary Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Justice, a Republican, was easily elected to the U.S. Senate last year amid mounting financial obligations. In 2023 he will faced a possible seizure of his governor’s salary to repay loans related to purchased coal equipment.
Before last year’s election, the West Virginia state tax department a series of liens arranged at the Greenbrier Resort — which is operated by the Justice family — more than $4 million due to sales taxes that were collected but not remitted to the state, MetroNews reports reported.
In October, Politico reported that the Internal Revenue Service had filed a notice of federal tax lien against Justice and his wife for more than $8 million in unpaid assessments for tax years 2009, 2017 and 2022.
The judiciary has pushed the financial problems aside, proverb it was “politically motivated” and the IRS owed him money. He linked the lien to his family’s coal business relationships, saying they were complicated and elaborate.
justice sold family coal company Bluestone Coal in 2009 to Russia-based Mechel for about $436 million in cash and stock. justice said His tax problems began in 2009 with IRS audits under the administration of former Democratic President Barack Obama.
“The timeline is running out because of their claim that I should have paid a few dollars more in 2009 than I did,” Justice said Oct. 23 in response to a question from Ogden Newspapers reporter Steven Allen Adams. “What they just did was they said we would go back to 2009 and we would weigh your interest and the penalties for it all the time, and that’s how they came up with ($8 million).”
Cathy Justice will serve on the state school board following her term appointed from her husband in 2024.
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