Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen hit with $1.2MILLION tax lien but says ‘incompetent and negligent accountant to blame’
DONALD Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen has been slapped with a federal tax lien for $1.2million, The Sun can reveal.
The and self-described fixer for was hit with the apparently new lien on March 11, according to federal records.
But Cohen has slammed the filing, claiming he has ";no clue" why the IRS would refile a lien he says has already been imposed.
"I am far from the of tax evasion," he blasted in an exclusive interview.
"The tax error, which I have paid off in full, was the result of the incompetence and negligence of my accountant Jeffrey Getzel as stated in my sentencing memo as well as in my current lawsuit against him for malpractice.
"Why the IRS has refiled I have no idea, it's a question even my accountant can't answer."
Cohen, who references notorious mob boss Capone – famously jailed for tax evasion and prohibition in 1931 – was jailed himself in 2018 for .
He claims he paid $1.3million in unpaid taxes prior to his sentencing and says this latest lien is the penalty and interest.
In 2019 it was reported he was slapped with a $1.9million lien stemming from unpaid personal income tax that he and his wife, Laura, owed.
This followed nearly $1.5million in fines and restitution against Cohen for crimes that included violating campaign finance law by paying $130,000 in hush money in 2016 to porn star , who claims she had a 2006 affair with Trump.
But Cohen has always maintained he was made a "scapegoat" by the government and was cornered into pleading guilty.
In his book, : The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, which shot to No. 1 on Amazon, Cohen wrote about being advised by his lawyer that if he didn't plead guilty to tax evasion, lying to Congress and misrepresentation to a bank, the government would file an 85-page indictment, drag him out of his apartment on national TV and would also indict his wife, Laura.
"It was like getting sucker-punched in the gut," he wrote of the government going after his wife.
He told The Sun: "If it wasn't for the threats against my wife I would never have pled guilty. I was never going to put her in harm's way.
"I had paid millions in taxes, I had never filed one late tax return, and then there's an error, no problem. Everybody else gets the opportunity to sit down with an IRS agent to work it out, not me."
Cohen says he had always been in good standing with the IRS up until that point.
He has since filed a $500,000 negligence lawsuit against his accountant for allegedly making errors on three years of tax returns.
Cohen sued accounting firm Getzel Schiff &; Pesce, LLP, and accountant Jeffrey Getzel in Manhattan Supreme Court for "negligence in preparing Mr. Cohen’s tax returns for the tax years 2013 through 2016."
The former lawyer added: "I'm in no jeopardy at the moment of getting any further issues with the IRS."
On December 12, 2018, Cohen was sentenced to and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine after pleading guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance violations.
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He was last year due to concerns surrounding , to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest at his apartment in Manhattan.
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Cohen has since turned vocal in his contempt for Trump, whom he blames for his fall from grace.
The 54-year-old started a podcast called Mea Culpa on the heels of his book and describes Trump as a cheat, liar, fraud, bully, racist, and predator.