GOP candidate for lieutenant governor recently owed thousands in unpaid taxes, records show

Anne Brensley, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, and her husband owed tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes to the federal government as of last month, according to public records.

Hours after WBUR contacted Brensley on Wednesday about the overdue federal taxes, she said she and her husband decided to pay off the nearly $33,000 they owed to the IRS. Brensley said the IRS “made an error on our taxes” and that the issues lingered after the IRS laid off workers last year.

“We were caught in the shuffle of staff when we were working through it,” she said in an email. “This [is] why taxes added up.”

In an initial phone call earlier Wednesday, Brensley said, "We definitely pay our taxes.”

Brensley is a Wayland selectwoman and business executive whose bid to be the state’s second-in-command received a boost this month when she was endorsed by Mike Minogue, a wealthy former biotech CEO who is one of the Republican candidates for governor.

Brensley lists a number of financial employers on her LinkedIn profile, including FX WiseRisk, a foreign currency risk management company she says she founded. She also says she’s a managing partner at a real estate development firm, DevCo North America.

After her name, she includes an “Esq.” designation on LinkedIn. She is a licensed attorney in Washington, D.C., but not in Massachusetts. She said she will “probably file” for a license in the Bay State this year.

She earned a law degree from Suffolk University Law School in 2008 and has often filed lawsuits in Massachusetts as a nonlawyer, what's called pro se.

That includes a case from 2017 in which she sued Bank of America for $50,000 and legal expenses over credit protection fees she said appeared on her credit card account. In another case from 2018, Brensley claimed a washing machine made by Electrolux Home Products was defective.

She was elected in 2023 to the Wayland Select Board, and she and her husband, David Eyerman, have owned homes in the town west of Boston for many years. It’s also where the IRS has issued two notices of federal tax liens for Brensley and Eyerman, according to public records.

A federal tax lien notice from April 2025 filed with the Southern Middlesex Registry of Deeds shows nearly $144,000 in unpaid taxes dating back to 2015, according to a publicly available copy reviewed by WBUR.

Another notice, signed by the IRS in March, lists $32,436 in unpaid federal taxes from 2024, according to a publicly available copy of the document.

An official at the Registry of Deeds confirmed Wednesday, before WBUR spoke with Brensley, that both federal tax liens remain active, and no discharges have been filed. A spokesperson for the IRS declined to comment, citing privacy laws that prevent the agency from discussing a specific taxpayer.

But Brensley said the amount she and her husband actually owed to the IRS as of Wednesday was $32,884. That’s the sum she said she paid off after being contacted by WBUR.

She said the $144,000 listed in the April 2025 notice reflected unpaid taxes at that moment in time. She said the amount had decreased as of last month because “we paid them.”

Brensley did not detail the error she said the IRS made on her taxes, but said the IRS office she was working with in Southborough "literally closed."

The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency originally planned to terminate a lease for IRS office space in Southborough, but later backed off the move, the Worcester Business Journal reported in March 2025. The office does not appear in a search of IRS offices on the agency's website.

The IRS has faced a series of layoffs since President Trump retook the White House last year. The IRS started 2025 with roughly 102,000 employees and finished with around 74,000, the Associated Press reported.

Boston Attorney Eric Rothenberg, who specializes in tax law, reviewed both the Brensley and Eyerman liens for WBUR. He could not find any documentation with the Southern Middlesex Registry of Deeds showing that either lien had been discharged.

Rothenberg noted that the lien from April 2025 may not reflect the most up-to-date tax situation for Brensley and Eyerman. And he also said the lien issued in March bears the signature of what’s called an IRS “offer-in-compromise” specialist.

“It looks to me like the officer that signed and recorded the lien is in the offer-in-compromise unit, which means they're trying to not pay off the lien,” Rothenberg said, but rather “pay less than the full amount, but yet get it released.”

But Brensley said she and her husband did not agree to any “reductions or compromises in the amounts owed” to the IRS.

“There was no intent to reduce taxes that were owed,” she said, but to “not pay ones that were not owed or inaccurate."

Brensley launched her campaign for lieutenant governor in September, but she did not tie herself to any of the Republican candidates running for governor: Minogue, Brian Shortsleeve or Mike Kennealy. In Massachusetts, voters elect governor and lieutenant governor separately, but they can also run on the same ticket.

Minogue has not announced a running mate, but endorsed Brensley earlier this month, saying she has been “putting in the work.”

Brensley has raised more than $56,000 since she jumped into the race in September, including a $25,000 loan she made to her campaign last month, according to state campaign finance records.

“She’s earned the respect of the delegates she’s spoken with, and as a result, she’s earned my vote and support for lieutenant governor at the Massachusetts Republican Party state convention,” Minogue said, referring to the MassGOP convention scheduled for April 25.

In response to a request for comment on Brensley's tax issues, Minogue sidestepped the question in a statement to WBUR.

“After traveling the commonwealth, most delegates told me they want Anne," he said. He added that he's supporting her because the two are aligned on what he calls "accountability, affordability, opportunity and keeping communities safe."

The statement added, "I admire her work ethic, and I believe the delegates are the heart of this movement and will agree with their pick."

Minogue’s endorsement came after two other potential running mates — Republican candidate for state treasurer Elizabeth Dionne and Taunton Mayor Shaunna O'Connell — declined overtures from Minogue, according to a Republican source with knowledge of the conversations.

Dionne declined to comment through a campaign spokesperson. A political spokesperson for O’Connell said she “was flattered to be asked, but she is fully committed to supporting Brian Shortsleeve.”

Minogue also did not address the conversations with Dionne and O’Connell.

In his statement, he said he decided not to pick a lieutenant governor running mate "because Massachusetts has had enough backroom deals. The delegates and voters are going to decide this.”

Correction: The photo cutline has been updated to reflect that Brensley is a licensed attorney in Washington, D.C. We regret the error.