Kanye West claims he owes nearly $50m in taxes

Kanye West has claimed that four of his bank accounts have been blocked by the IRS due to him owing millions in “taxes”.

According to the rapper, the total amount owed comes to “around $50m” (about £40.1m).

The 45-year-old made the claims while being interviewed on Monday (28 November) for theTimecast IRL podcast.

Apparently West only found out about the debt that same morning: “I’m talking about literally finding out that they were trying to put me in prison this morning.”

“But I found out – OK, so they froze, they put a $75m hold on four of my accounts. And then they said, ‘You owe a lot of taxes’,” told the rapper.

West went on to say that after “six hours” of trying to find out how much he owed, he established the amount was “around $50m” (around £40.1m).

He noted that his huge success had meant that he wasn’t well versed in the financial side of things. The rapper said he’d had to ask various CEOs to find out what qualified as “tax evasion”.

“[I’m] obviously not the most financially literate person on the planet,” said West.

“So now I’m having — I get to actually learn how to run a company. I get to learn how to, you know, to count, really.”

“It’s like I didn’t even know where to put the money,” he said.

Earlier this week, it was announced that West and Kim Kardashian are officially divorced.

The pair split at the start of 2021 and managed to avert a December trial.

The ex-couple settled on $200k (£167k) payment per month of child support from West to Kardashian.

West will share “equal access” with Kardashian for children North, 9, Saint, 6, Chicago, 4, and Psalm, 3, according to the documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.