Kim Richards of movie and reality television fame petitioned the Tax Court to dispute nearly $250,000 in income taxes and penalties owed for tax year 2015.
The petition was filed in early March and states that the IRS erred in determining that Richards had non-employee compensation in the amount of $442,928 for 2015, and it challenges section 6651(a) delinquency penalties equaling about $77,000.
Specifically, the IRS found that Richards owes $164,732 in back taxes and a combined $79,913.67 in section 6651(a)(1), 6651(a)(2), and 6654(a) penalties for 2015.
“Since the Commissioner erred in all the adjustments set forth in the notice of deficiency, the Commissioner also erred in his determination with respect to the statutory and/or computational adjustments,” according to the petition, which was filed March 5 and served March 8.
The tax year at issue, 2015, was the final year in which Richards appeared as a series regular on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills along with her sister, Kyle Richards Umansky, and others.
The IRS sent Richards the notice of deficiency on December 7, 2020, and although Richards’s 2015 return was due October 15, 2016, it wasn’t filed until August 31, 2020, according to documents attached to the petition.
The petition argues that the IRS also erred in determining that Richards had taxable prior-year state refunds in the amount of $1,247 and other miscellaneous income of $20,000 for tax year 2015.
The IRS further erred in finding that Richards had wages, tips, and other compensation in the amount of $11,005 and $11 in royalty income for that same year, the petition claims.
Any failure to timely file and pay was attributable to reasonable cause and not willful neglect, the petition argues, asking the court to find that there are no tax deficiencies, penalties, or additions to tax owed by Richards for 2015.
Richards’s acting career began in infancy, and she played Tia Malone in Disney’s 1975 film Escape to Witch Mountain and its 1978 sequel Return From Witch Mountain, among numerous other movies and television shows, including Little House on the Prairie, The Dukes of Hazzard, and the 1976 thriller Assault on Precinct 13. She is the aunt of socialite Paris Hilton.
Richards is represented by Gary M. Slavett of Holtz, Slavett & Drabkin APLC. Slavett, a former IRS senior trial attorney, didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.