Marlee Matlin Paying Back Taxes to IRS

Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin said she is in the process of paying $50,000 in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.

The 45-year-old hearing-impaired actress told People magazine that she is working out a schedule with the IRS to repay back taxes from 2009. “I’m paying it back,” she said. “I’m not shying away from it and I’m certainly not ashamed of it. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It’s reality. It’s the reality that a lot of people in America are facing.”

Matlin received an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1986 for the movie, “Children of a Lesser God.” Lately she has been appearing in the NBC reality TV series “Celebrity Apprentice” competing against the likes of Meat Loaf, Gary Busey, and La Toya Jackson to raise money for charity and a “job” with Donald Trump.

However, as a hearing-impaired actress, Matlin has not always been able to count on a steady acting career. She said that she and her policeman husband have needed to sell their home to make ends meet and move their children from private school to public school.

“I’m not broke,” she told People. “Like everybody else, I owe money.”