Floyd Mayweather Jr is set to earn another record payday when he fights Conor McGregor next month, and a report on Monday got people thinking the undefeated boxer agreed to the bout so he can pay off his massive tax debt.
ESPN’s Darren Rovell tracked down a Tax Court petition that Mayweather filed on July 5 asking the IRS to allow him to wait until after his Aug. 26 fight against McGregor to pay a tax bill from 2015.
“Although the taxpayer has substantial assets, those assets are restricted and primarily illiquid,” the petition said, according to the legal website Law360. “The taxpayer has a significant liquidity event scheduled in about 60 days from which he intends to pay the balance of the 2015 tax liability due and outstanding.”
Early Tuesday morning, Mayweather took to Instagram to prove that he paid $26 million in taxes in 2015. He essentially said Rovell’s report is a lie.
Mayweather made an estimated $220 million from his fight against Manny Pacquiao alone in 2015, so it seems like he would owe a lot more than $26 million in taxes. Even if the $220 million was all he made (which it almost certainly wasn’t), that would mean he only gave Uncle Sam 13 percent of his income.
As you might expect, McGregor is not concerning himself with Mayweather’s supposed tax issues. The UFC star told TMZ on Monday that Mayweather should have stayed retired.
“I don’t give a f— what he did,” McGregor said. “I don’t care what he done. He should have stayed retired. He’s f—ed now. That’s the God’s honest truth. He should have paid his taxes and stayed retired and kept my name out of his mouth.”
Mayweather has had some interesting tax issues in the past, most notably when he tried to cut down the amount he owed the IRS with the help of a strip club. Our gut feeling is that he has more than enough money to pay any unpaid taxes from 2015. Did he take the fight against McGregor for financial reasons? Probably, but that doesn’t mean Floyd is in any financial trouble, either.
