Boise legislative candidate owed, repaid $50,000 in IRS debt due to business closure
A Republican candidate for an Idaho Senate seat paid over $50,000 to the Internal Revenue Service following his son’s death and the shuttering of his business.
Dennis Mansfield, a candidate for Legislative District 16 serving Boise and Garden City, previously owed $50,000 to the IRS in 2008. He paid the money back in 2013, records showed. Mansfield, who wrote about his son’s death in a memoir called “Beautiful Nate,” said the tragedy pushed him into a depression that left him unable to run his addiction recovery business.
“I found out that when you lose a son or a daughter or a wife or a loved one, so much of your life just falls apart,” Mansfield told the Idaho Statesman by phone.
Mansfield is running in the Nov. 8 general election against Democrat Ali Rabe, executive director of Jesse Tree, the nonprofit eviction and homelessness prevention organization that serves Ada and Canyon counties. Rabe was previously in the Senate for District 17, but she stepped down when she moved to District 16. Rabe declined to comment for this story.
Mansfield ran New Hope Safe and Sober Housing, an addiction recovery program for inmates and others, he said. When his son, Nate, died, Mansfield said he could no longer operate the business, so he closed everything down.
A 2010 Statesman report found Mansfield owed thousands to the IRS. He was the spokesman for Republican Rep. Raúl Labrador’s congressional campaign at the time and previously told the Statesman he and his wife were repaying the debt.
When his son died, Mansfield said he gave up on the business, closing it while still owing taxes on it. That is when the IRS placed a lien on the property.
“We were targeting, helping ex-addicts and ex-inmates,” Mansfield said.
Mansfield believed going through the hardship and paying off his debt equipped him to turn his life around — and to try to help people and businesses in difficult times through public office, he said.
District 16 encompasses about 52,000 residents in the Treasure Valley. The Boise River runs through the district that begins at the Connector, stretches north to State Street and includes Garden City and Boise’s West End. All legislative seats are for two-year terms.
This story was originally published November 3, 2022 at 4:07 PM.
