TV anchor fired over IRS-target claims
'I pay my taxes, just like any other taxpayer'
KMOV (Channel 4) fired Larry Conners prompting St. Louis' longest-tenured anchorman to defend his claim that IRS "pressure" followed his 2012 interview of President Barack Obama.
Conners, 66, spent 37 years in St. Louis television — the last 27 as an anchor at KMOV — and won numerous local Emmy Awards.
His firing comes after a series of events that began when Conners implied in the May 13 Facebook post that he may have been targeted by the IRS after interviewing President Barack Obama in 2012. In that interview, Conners questioned Obama's travel expenditures.
The IRS claims Conners and his wife, Janet L. Conners, owe more than $85,000 from 2008, 2009 and 2010. Larry Conners said he has had a tax accountant prepare his statements for years and that he and his wife had paid taxes for 2008-2010, but the IRS disagreed with the Conners over some deductions. He was on a payment plan with the IRS, he said, but after the Obama interview, the IRS cancelled the plan. In September a lien was placed on their Clayton home. The IRS declined to comment.
'THE IRS HAS BEEN PRESSURING ME'
In the Facebook post Conners penned on May 13, he says: "I don’t accept 'conspiracy theories,' but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me. ... Can I prove it? At this time, no. But it is a fact that since that April 2012 interview … the IRS has been pressuring me."
On Wednesday, Conners explained he was not challenging the IRS claims that he owed money. He said he had worked out a monthly payment plan that began in the summer of 2011.
"I pay my taxes, just like any other taxpayer," Conners said."I made payments every month."
Even after the IRS notified him it was cancelling the payment plan, Conners continued to make a monthly payment.
"I didn't want them to come back and say I wasn't paying," he said. "And we tried to work out a new payment plan, but the IRS wouldn't work with me."
He said he stopped the payments in January, on the advice of a tax attorney, because a payment plan wasn't in place.
Conners maintains he did not consider that the IRS could be exacting some vendetta because of the Obama interview until after national stories about the IRS broke.
"I thought I was being a good employee, so I held my tongue," he said.
Then they fired him
Conners had little to say about his future plans, but on Wednesday created a new Twitter account, @LarryConnersUSA. There he describes himself as a "Texan, Marine, gun owner, pilot, Harley Rider, poker player" and says "these views are my 1st Amendment Rights."
is the station worried about getting audited?
:shock: