The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has leveled two liens totaling about $3.5 million on Greenbrier properties owned by Senator Jim Justice and his family.
The Greenbrier owners, through their attorney, say the matter is being worked out.
A lien of $3.3 million applying to The Greenbrier Hotel was entered Thursday.
Another lien of $289,893 on The Greenbrier Clinic, the health center at the hotel, was also filed.
Each of the liens actually applies to four tax assessment dates between last July and this past February. Both liens were entered by Greenbrier County’s circuit clerk.
“We have made a demand for payment of this liability, but it remains unpaid,” the IRS wrote in the publicly available filings.
Jim Justice, former governor and now U.S. senator, bought The Greenbrier in 2009. The Greenbrier Hotel Corp. lists daughter Jill Justice as president and son Jay Justice as vice president.
Steve Ruby, a Charleston attorney who regularly performs legal work for the Justices, said the matter is being worked out between the family business group and the IRS.
“The recent IRS action is a purely precautionary measure taken after extensive discussions between The Greenbrier and the IRS, and is entirely consistent with the payment plan that The Greenbrier has communicated to the IRS,” Ruby said in a statement provided through PLUS Communications.
“The liability will be resolved shortly as part of The Greenbrier’s impending financing transaction.”
The Greenbrier family ownership group has been working on a financing deal of about $500 million with Kennedy Lewis Investment Management LLC, which is a New York-based alternative asset management firm focused on opportunistic and private credit. Founded in 2017, it frequently invests in distressed debt and focuses on situations driven by events.
That potential financial deal is wrapped up in a federal court dispute between the Justices and the owners of Omni Hotels & Resorts.
The Omni affiliate White Sulphur Springs Holdings filed a federal lawsuit to try to have a receiver named to run The Greenbrier while pushing out the Justices.
The court case is mostly on hold while the Justices see through the financing possibility with Kennedy Lewis.
The West Virginia tax department has filed to intervene in the case, saying it needs to be able to protect the state’s interest in $4.4 million in liens on unremitted sales and personal income taxes.
“In fact, the Tax Division holds nine liens against the Greenbrier Hotel Corporation for consumers sales and use tax in the total amount of $3,982,038.51 and one lien for personal income tax withholding in the amount of $455,070.11, for a total lien amount of $4,437,108.62,” the lawyers wrote in a federal case filing last month.