Langlois replies to critics on tax evasion

Richmond city council candidate Marilyn Langlois was the target of a negative campaign mailer this week. Photo - Tawanda Kanhema
By Stephen HobbsPosted October 3, 2012 4:36 pm
Richmond residents received a campaign mailer this week criticizing the taxpaying record of City Council candidate Marilyn Langlois.
The mailer, and connected website, add an additional narrative to the campaign for the three open city council seats. Both reveal that Langlois failed to pay taxes to the IRS and that she had two tax liens against her. The first came in 2007, for $9,728 and the second in 2008, for $5,940.
Langlois responded by sending out an emailed explanation of her record on Monday afternoon.
“I engaged in war tax resistance as a symbolic gesture to protest the use of federal tax dollars for the illegal and destructive Iraq war,” she wrote. “I informed my congressional representatives of what I was doing and why. I knew that the funds would ultimately be received by the IRS anyway (the amount owed plus interest and penalties was eventually taken from my bank account during the collections process).”
The federal tax liens against her in 2007 and 2008 are available online.
The mailer and website also criticize Langlois for her connections with the Richmond Progressive Alliance and Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.
The mailer and website were paid for by Moving Forward, which identifies itself as “a coalition of labor unions, small businesses and public safety and firefighters associations supporting Bell, Bates and Roberson, and opposing Martinez and Langlois for City Council 2012.”
The Moving Forward coalition also paid for a mailer in support of the re-election of Nat Bates earlier in the election season. Chevron is listed as a major funder.
Candidate Gary Bell said Tuesday that even though he’s listed on the mailer, he did not agree with the campaign tactics. “I do not support that kind of campaigning,” he said at the council meeting. “It is unfortunate that she has to undergo that kind of scrutiny.”
Friday, Oct. 5 is the first deadline to file campaign statements since July 31. The first pre-election statement covers the period from Jan. 1-Sept. 30, if a semi-annual statement was not filed on July, 31 and from July 1- Sept. 30, if a semi-annual statement was filed.