Will Smith Details The IRS Coming After Him For Back Taxes

Will Smith – Source: Ignat/Bauer-Griffin / Getty

While on the road promoting Bad Boys: Ride or Die Will Smith detailed his journey including an almost career-ending run-in with the IRS.

Summer Blockbuster season is upon us and Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are once again delivering for moviegoers with Bad Boys: Ride or Die. With all big movies comes a hefty promotional tour and Will and Martin aren’t turning down any interviews. The best part is the duo is dropping gems about life that all of us can live by.

According to Complex, during a stop on The Kid Mero and Carmelo Anthony’s 7 PM in Brooklyn podcast, Will detailed his run-in with the IRS.

His story is one everyone should pay attention to and details how the IRS will always get their money.

“The moment I decided, I think it was ’88 and we had won a Grammy, but I had neglected to pay my taxes,” Smith recalled at the 15:09 mark. “I was, like, the IRS gets money from everybody, they don’t need mine – but they felt differently. So I didn’t pay taxes for two years and winning a Grammy and all that…so they just thought they should take my stuff. So I was a little down and I went out to L.A., I sold everything in Philly. I was broke, broke.”

To make matters worse the IRS came knocking while Will was blowing money fast on your typical materialistic items like cars and clothes. Adding insult to injury his upcoming album failed to be the commercial hit he needed to cure his IRS problem.

“We released our next album and it was, like, a flop. It was a tragedy, it went, like, double plastic,” he said in the video below. “I had spent most of my money, like, I spent all my money and I didn’t forget, but I didn’t pay the IRS. In my mind, I wasn’t trying to like, avoid taxes, I was just like, Ah, damn, they need they money.”

“The IRS took all that stuff,” he continued. “So, I was like, broke, broke, broke.”

Everything happens for a reason and later Smith would strike gold after a December 1989 meeting with Quincy Jones. That meeting led to Smith starring in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Luckily, he learned a hard lesson about taxes before his career ascended to a different level.

You can watch the full interview from 7 PM In Brooklyn below.