Comedian Redd Foxx said he would have asked his show-business friends for help had he known the Internal Revenue Service was going to raid his Las Vegas home and seize his property to pay past-due taxes.
"I could have gotten in touch with Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor or Frank Sinatra or somebody who knows that, you know, I have been helpful to a lot of people," the star of the old TV series "Sanford and Son" said Tuesday after IRS agents left him with only a bed at his home.Agents seized at least seven cars and even took jewelry that Foxx was wearing, said his business manager, Prince Spencer.
"It looked like a rock house raid," Spencer said. "They really played it kind of rough."
The IRS said the seizures were made to pay $755,166.21 in taxes Foxx owed for 1983, 1984 and 1986. It said Foxx had ignored four payment notices.
IRS spokeswoman Norma Lalley refused to say whether Foxx's house was seized, but Spencer said agents told the entertainer he could continue staying at the home until it was sold. The home was valued at $200,000 in a 1983 court filing.
Foxx filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that year, citing $1.6 million owed the IRS from taxes before 1983 and more than $800,000 owed other creditors.