IRS Accuses Redd Foxx of Failing to Pay Taxes, Seizes His Vegas Home

Actor-comedian Redd Foxx’s home and seven of his vehicles were seized Tuesday by the Internal Revenue Service for alleged failure to pay income taxes from 1983 to 1986, authorities said.

The IRS filed liens on Foxx’s property totaling $755,166.21. But authorities contend that the entertainer owes considerably more because of penalties and accumulated interest on the four years of unpaid taxes.

Foxx lives in Las Vegas where his comedy routine has become a staple of the nighttime entertainment circuit. Several years ago, the comedian lost other property, including some in Los Angeles, after declaring bankruptcy in 1983, said Robert Giannangeli, a spokesman for the IRS in Los Angeles.

Foxx said he would have asked his show-business friends for help had he known the IRS was going to seize his property.

“I could have gotten in touch with Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor or Frank Sinatra or somebody who knows that, you know, I have been helpful to a lot of people,” the star of the old TV series “Sanford and Son” said Tuesday after IRS agents left him with only a bed at his home.

Foxx filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1983, citing $1.6 million owed the IRS from taxes before 1983 and more than $800,000 owed other creditors.