Filmmaker Tyler Perry shared a past experience where he had to face the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), except he revealed to be on the receiving end after an audit revealed the IRS owed him $9 million in return.
The philanthropist shared the information with attendees at the 2022 Earn Your Leisure Conference where he talked about his successful career journey along with some of the challenges and learning experiences he faced along the way.
“Money isn’t something that I had and nobody taught me that taxes had to be paid,” he shared. “I didn’t go to college, but I paid for Harvard many times over in the mistakes that I made.”
The situation with the ‘Madea’ actor where he was allegedly being audited by someone from the IRS was one of the stories he told to the sold-out audience. The outlet revealed that this particular agent from the IRS was supposedly obsessed with what Perry was doing with his money
.“So this audit went on for three years,” Perry said. “I’m spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in accounting with accountants for the audit and I am getting so mad, and so frustrated.”
“We get to the end of the audit and they, the IRS, owed me $9 million,” he shared.
Perry shared that although his team of accountants were elated about the return, the actor made an executive decision to fire the team responsible for his accounting, wondering how they missed him paying $9 million.
“Everybody gone! I had to stop going to H&R block for my taxes at some point,” he joked with the conference’s audience, according to Finurah.
“I learned in progress and it’s okay,” Perry said.
“Listen to me: In business, it’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to learn. You have to learn, but don’t let it keep happening over and over again. That’s one thing about me. I’ll let you make a million mistakes, but you can’t do the same thing over and over again.”
“That’s how I run my business. Here’s the mistake. Let’s fix it; let’s move forward,” he said.
Reportedly, Perry got the agent from the IRS removed from the case and replaced with one of his superiors.