Terrence Howard received a federal order to pay nearly $1 million in a tax case

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

A federal judge has ordered actor Terrence Howard to pay nearly $1 million in back taxes, interest and penalties.

The action comes after Howard threatened a Justice Department lawyer and claimed that “it is immoral for the United States government to tax the descendants of slaves.”

He is accused of ignoring efforts by the IRS to collect $578,000 in income taxes it says he failed to pay between 2010 and 2019.

Howard was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the film Traffic and trafficHe was the star of TV shows empire.

He was sued by the Justice Department in 2022 after he reportedly did not respond to their requests beyond a voicemail he allegedly left on the phone of the lead tax attorney in the case. In that letter, Howard denied that he owed anything and threatened to publish the lawsuit on the Internet, which would expose the lawyer.

“Four hundred years of forced labor and I have not received any compensation for it,” the actor said in the letter, according to the text. “Now you have the audacity to try to sue and tax the descendants of a broken people you are responsible for causing the collapse.”

Howard's recording cut off mid-sentence. But he called the lawyer again to follow up.

“In fact, the entire United States should, by default, become the property of the descendants of slaves,” he said. “But since you don't have the ability [or] Courage to do it, let's try it in court. …We will bring you down.

The court claimed that this was Howard's final response.

U.S. District Judge John F. Murphy granted the government's request to enter a $903,115 default judgment against the actor.

This is not the first time Howard has dealt with payments owed to the government.

State tax liens totaling about $639,000 were filed against his 2,450-square-foot property in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, in 2005 and 2006. It was settled, according to court records. The IRS also placed a $1.1 million lien on the estate in 2010 due to Howard's failure to pay income taxes in 2007 and 2008.

In 2019, the California Franchise Tax Board hit Howard with another lien, claiming he owed $144,000 dating back to 2010.