Georgia's two leading candidates for governor are both carrying tax baggage into the final stretch of a deadlocked race. Reporting puts the combined tax-related figure for Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and her husband at nearly $400,000, while Republican Rick Jackson is locked in federal disputes over tens of millions of dollars in deductions tied to his business and film investments.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported nearly $400,000 in combined tax-related obligations for Bottoms and her husband. The governor's office overseeing Georgia carries a multibillion-dollar budget funded largely by taxes on the state's own citizens and businesses, a backdrop the newspaper's reporting places front and center for both candidates.
A Federal Tax Lien
A separate account from Dome Politics reported that Bottoms' husband, Derek Bottoms, was issued a $342,851.97 federal tax lien in 2021 for unpaid taxes from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. Dome Politics also reported that this federal lien was satisfied in 2022.
Dome Politics' reporting also revisits Bottoms' own record on tax transparency. During her 2017 mayoral campaign, the outlet reported, Bottoms championed a proposal requiring candidates to file five years of tax returns 70 days before their election — a standard she herself had not met at the time, since she had not yet released her own returns. When her returns eventually surfaced, the same outlet reported they were unsigned and heavily redacted, and did not include all the schedules submitted to the IRS.
Bottoms served as Atlanta's mayor from 2018 to 2022.
Jackson's Own Tax Fights With The IRS
Jackson, a healthcare business executive, film investor and founder of a health-care staffing company, is facing his own scrutiny. The New York Times reported that his firm, Jackson Investment Group, has been the subject of three court battles with the IRS and has sought roughly $90 million in tax deductions tied to four money-losing films.
Per the AJC's reporting, the IRS claims Jackson improperly claimed almost $54 million in business-investment losses as tax deductions, and he is disputing that claim.
The U.S. Tax Court ruled in 2023 that Jackson had overvalued deductions in a related matter, and a judge lowered the deductions by about $4 million.
With the governor's race deadlocked and both candidates now facing public scrutiny over their finances, the overlapping tax controversies are likely to remain a flashpoint through the remainder of the campaign.
