Yo Gotti almost lost 15 houses that he’d paid cash for because he didn’t know he owed property taxes.
In 2021, Gotti dropped $7.6 million on a mansion in Westlake Village in California. He soon received a letter warning him that his new mansion and other properties would be seized for nonpayment of taxes.
Gotti complained that kids aren’t taught about paying taxes in school. He didn’t know that if he didn’t pay his property taxes, he could lose the homes he paid cash for.
The 43-year-old “Back 2 da Basics” rapper told the “Earn Your Leisure” podcast that he grew up thinking tax time was a celebration.
Gotti said he received gifts from his mom, but he didn’t know she bought those gifts with her tax refund.
“I grew up thinking, when you heard of taxes, my mama and ’em got tax money. That’s when we got new Jordans. We got new outfits… It was a celebration when it was tax time,” he said. “We was waiting on tax time. It was better than Christmas. So, I didn’t know… even in my early stages of getting money, I didn’t know we had to pay. I didn’t know because of a lack of information; they didn’t teach me that in school.”
Yo Gotti advocates for teaching financial literacy in schools.
He said he learned the hard way that property taxes must be paid on time or he could lose his homes.
“I was buying real estate early right, and I just happened to get a letter. They said like, ‘Yo, we’re gonna… seize your property if you don’t pay this,’ and I didn’t even know you had to pay property taxes on a house that you paid cash for,” he said.
“At this time, bro, I got 10, 15 houses I done paid cash for that I had for four, five years that I’d never paid a property tax on because I didn’t know. So, it just so happened that I get a letter in the mail telling me that… they’re going to seize the properties if I don’t pay these property taxes… So, I hit my lawyer, they weren’t even a tax lawyer… he was criminal lawyer… So I hit him like, ‘Yo, let me, I ain’t seen these papers.’ and he sent me to a tax lawyer and a CPA… and I sat down with them, and they they pretty much put me on game.”
