Origin:On 18 January 2017, the right wing web site GotNews posted a story claiming that U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who is perhaps most famous for participating in the Civil Rights Movement at the side of Martin Luther King, Jr., didn’t pay property taxes on a $1 million townhouse located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C.:
Trump-hating Democratic Georgia congressman John Lewis didn’t pay property taxes on his nearly $1 million fancy Washington, D.C. townhouse on Capitol Hill, despite being in Congress for decades, where the salary for a Representative starts at $174,000 per year.
Lewis was in the news recently for saying he doesn’t see President-elect Donald J. Trump as “a legitimate president” because of the #RussianHackers Democratic conspiracy theory.
The article then displayed a table that purportedly showed annual property tax payments for the home in question and a legal notice from 2010 alerting Lewis of a court action against him (the case was later dismissed).
We were unable to verify whether the table displayed by GotNews.com is authentic. We were unable to recreate it using public tools available from the Washington, D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue:
If that is indeed a property tax schedule for Lewis’s home, it doesn’t necessarily show he is in arrears with his payments. It shows instead that payments are up-to-date except for a balance of $4,038.17 for the second half of 2016, which according to the Office of Tax and Revenue office, would have been due on 15 September. But we couldn’t find a date on the above screen shot, so it’s unclear whether it was captured before the payment was due. (It also appears part of the table is cut off by the framing of the above screen shot).
We contacted Lewis’s spokeswoman, Brenda Jones, who told us that he bought the home years before property values soared, and still owns it. She said he is not behind on his taxes:
He pays property taxes annually, just as all homeowners in DC do, and his taxes are paid and up to date. Any report that he “avoids” paying taxes grasps at straws and is a desperate and unnecessary attempt to tarnish his credibility, instead of debating the substance of issues he has raised.
Neither the home in question, nor any properties under Lewis’ name, appeared on a database search of properties seized and placed on sale for failure to pay property taxes.
A second item of alleged proof offered by GotNews.com was a 2010 “notice of pendency of action,” a legal notice of court actions relating to real property. The document appears to be a notice of a foreclosure hearing. That case, however, was dismissed on 11 February 2011:
According to current public records available as of 19 January 2017, Lewis still owns the property, confirming that the case was dropped. It is currently valued at $865,790, and was purchased in 1988. The purchase price was not available.
An explanation offered by Lewis’s office says in 2010, he nearly lost his home to foreclosure, but was able to stop the process:
Rep. Lewis’s Washington, DC property was purchased decades ago for a fraction of its current value today. As most Washingtonians and any real property expert know, property values in the city have risen exponentially in the last 10 to15 years. Rep. Lewis is delighted that he made a wise investment years ago, and that his property’s value has skyrocketed. He also realizes he likely could not afford to purchase his own home were he seeking to buy it today. In 2010, he was subjected to attempts to foreclose upon his home, like many Americans during that period. He is fortunate that he was able to stop that process, though many Americans, including many hundreds of his constituents, were not as successful. His property taxes are paid and currently up to date.
We found no credible evidence showing that Rep. Lewis does not pay his property taxes.