Teen Mom: The Next Chapter star Leah Messer is taking responsibility after reports of her mounting tax debt surfaced. Messer, 31, was reportedly hot with a federal tax lien of nearly $300,000 early last month. She now owes over $770,000 in unpaid taxes. Messer said she got behind amid her divorce from Jeremy Calvert and during a trip to a rehabilitation facility.
“I have worked with many different accountants over the years. At first, I was filing and paying more than I was making and then I was paying people that had me stall while ‘they handled the tax situation,’” Messer told InTouch Weekly on June 2. “Apparently it’s a long process. Then in 2020, the IRS was backed up like the entire world due to COVID. I initially got behind after my divorce from [Calvert] and when I went to the rehabilitation facility.”
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Messer noted that she did not grow up with the kind of income she is earning now through MTV and her other business interests. “I didn’t have the guidance that a girl at 16 should’ve had to responsibly handle money and make healthy financial planning choices,” she said, adding that she is still “figuring this all out on my own” and hopes young women learn from her mistakes. “Let this be an example for everyone out here: take that boring financial class in high school or college,” she told InTouch. “Your future self WILL thank you for it!” Messer hired an “amazing accountant and tax attorney” who will help her through this process.
Messer‘s unpaid taxes came to light in October 2022 when The U.S. Sun reported she owed $448,261.35 in unpaid federal taxes for 2015, 2017, and 2019. She also had a West Virginia state tax lien of $9,238.04. Messer was hit with another federal tax lien of $290,297.46 on May 8, The Sun reports. The second lien is for unpaid taxes for 2018, 2020 and 2021.
The tax issues could explain why Messer was not listed as co-owner of the house she shared with ex-fiance Jaylan Mobley in Charleston, West Virginia. Mobley, a U.S. Army officer, was listed as the sole owner of the house on the deed. He reportedly received a mortgage offered through a U.D. Department of Veteran Affairs program to buy the house in March 2022. After the couple split in October 2022, Messer accused Mobley of lying to her about amending the house deed.
“He said he was trying to get me on the deed AFTER we made it back home from Costa Rica. BUT while we were there, he made it seem ON-CAMERA as though it was already complete and done,” Messer wrote in a December 2022 Instagram Story post. “I take full responsibility for believing that because I even asked, ‘Don’t I have to be present?’ And he said, ‘No, because I’m the sole owner.’ It’s the lying…”
Messer and Mobley made their relationship Instagram Official in September 2021. They got engaged in August 2022 during a trip to Costa Rica. After they split, the two released a joint statement, explaining they “realized that it’s best we walk separate paths.”
Messer was previously married to Corey Simms, the father of her twin daughters Aleeah and Aliannah, from 2010 to 2011. She married Calvert, the father of her daughter Adalynn, in 2012 and they split in 2015.
