In what must be a coincidence, news that Rep. Lauren “Boebert paid off the last of nearly $20,000 in state tax liens that had accumulated on her restaurant since 2016” comes just a day after The Denver Post reported that Rep. Lauren Boebert’s mileage reimbursement “raises red flags”.
Colorado Newsline has uncovered records that show right before her election, Boebert paid the liens her business owed, nearly $19,000 worth.
On Feb. 13, 2020, three of the liens, totaling $553.50, were satisfied and released, records show. The remaining five liens, totaling $18,999.36, were satisfied on Oct. 22, 2020, according to Garfield County records.
Boebert’s restaurant had eight liens upon it for not paying unemployment insurance premiums. Boebert would not explain how she managed to pay off the liens, despite “multiple requests” from Colorado Newsline.
Most of all of Boebert’s travel took place during a global pandemic and her restaurant, Shooters Grill, had its license briefly revoked in May 2020 for repeatedly defying Colorado’s coronavirus-based restrictions on in-person dining. Her restaurant’s license was conditional restored after two weeks if it were to operate only at 50 percent capacity.
Restaurants nationally have been hard hit by the pandemic.
”Governor Polis, your policies are literally bankrupting small businesses like mine that are trying their very best to responsibly stay afloat,” Boebert wrote in a Facebook post shortly after regulators revoked the license.
With the IRS’s milage reimbursement rate of 57.5¢ per mile, Boebert would have had to driven 38,712 miles while campaigning, according to a calculation made by The Denver Post. Boebert had only a single public campaign events in May, and no public events in March, April, or July of 2020.
Furthermore, because the reimbursements came in two payments — a modest $1,060 at the end of March and $21,200 on Nov. 11 — Boebert would have had to drive 36,870 miles in just over seven months between April 1 and Nov. 11 to justify the second payment.
The Boebert campaign was unwilling to provide evidence she drove almost 39,000 miles. By the newspaper’s own analysis, Boebert traveled 17,623 miles in 2020, would be a little more than $10k in reimbursable travel expenses.
So, did Lauren Boebert’s suspicious $22k mileage reimbursements pay for her restaurant’s nearly $20k in tax liens? Seems to me like an audit is in order.
On Friday, The Denver Post reported that Boebert’s mileage reimbursement is the subject of a federal ethics complaint, which was filed by a government watchdog Accountable.US.