(EXCLUSIVE) Love & Hip Hop Atlanta’s Benzino Hit With $5 Million Dollar Tax Lien

Not so good financial news for reality star/owner of “Hip Hop Weekly”, Benzino (real name Raymond Scott). theJasmineBRAND.com exclusively reports that the former Love & Hip Hop Atlanta star owes the IRS some serious money. How serious is his debt? According to documents, he’s failed to fully pay Uncle Sam for the last ten years and now they are coming after him for $5 million + in tax debt.

According to the lien filed by the IRS in Georgia, Benzino failed to pay taxes for the years 1997 ($178,397.30), 1998 ($760,867.19) 1999 ($691,828.28), 2000 ($1,3339,844.11), 2001 ($634,281.39) , 2002 ($143,7688), 2003 ($19,969.91), 2004 ($12,975.36), 2005 ($87,366.32) & 2008 ($18,470.64). The grand total for the tax debt comes out to $5,181,788.50

The tax lien isn’t the first issue Benzino has had with Uncle Sam. Back in 2005, he was charged by the US Attorney’s office for failing to file tax returns for the years 1999 and 2000 and accused of failing to report $1.5 million he made for those years. However, he was later found not guilty of the charges.  See the court docs.

We’ve reached out to Benzino’s camp. Thus far, no response.

In more pleasant news, Benzino and his fiancee Althea Hart, seem to be in great spirits since receiving a pink slip from VH1. Over the weekend, we caught them hanging out on a couple’s trip, with reality couples Tamar Braxton and Vincent Herbert, along with April and Lashawn Daniels (who co-star on ‘Tamar & Vince’). No word on if the We TV cameras were rolling or not, but our guess is, the couple may plan to return to TV in some capacity.

Follow me: @theJasmineBRAND on Twitter | theJasmineBRAND on Facebook | theJasmineBRAND on Instagram