Rap star MC Hammer claims the IRS is giving him a bad rap after the government filed three tax liens against him, including one in July for over $625,000.

MC Hammer (photo by Brian Solis)

The singer, whose real name is Stanley Burrell, said the back taxes he allegedly owes are from 15 years ago, and he is disputing the sum with the IRS.

“I paid the IRS 100 percent of their claim,” said Hammer in a statement. “In the past year or so, they decided — wrongly — that I owed them additional taxes from 15 years ago. I am contesting this claim through my tax attorneys and my case is making its way through the IRS appeal process. I hope to be successful.”

The singer, whose hits have included “U Can’t Touch This,” “Turn This Mutha Out,” and “Pray,” said that the alleged past due amount of approximately $625,000 is not related to his current successful business ventures and have no impact on them. Hammer went bankrupt in 1996, but now owns or works on several businesses including Dance Jam, his own record label, production company, and musical appearances, as well as other ventures.

Hammer is currently featured on “Hammertime,” a television show on the A&E network. He also noted that he has more 1.2 million followers on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Mchammer. He was affected by the recent outage of Twitter.

Hammer claimed that news reports incorrectly give the impression that he is facing new financial issues, but he insisted that is not the case.

“I think the IRS claim is wrong and unfair,” he said. “When there was a sum of $7 million available, the IRS took the amount they said was due them. Now they want to come back for more now that it's 15 years later? That’s just not right and I’m fighting that nonsense.”