Stephen King Demands Apology from Maine's Paul LePage on Tax Row

What seemed like a mere "slip" has become a massive dispute that has pitted best-selling author and Master of Horror Stephen King against Maine Governor Paul LePage.

In his weekly radio address last week, LePage said: "Well, today former Governor Ken Curtis lives in Florida where there is zero income tax. Stephen King and Roxanne Quimby have moved away, as well."

The obviously erroneous statement made by the Governor had his communications staff scrambling to delete the reference to King and Quimby. The radio address was specific to the governor's desire to lower and eventually eliminate Maine's income tax since well-off residents claim other states like Florida as their primary domicile for tax purposes.

King is a Bangor, Maine resident who lives and votes in Maine. He told the Portland Press Herald that he and his wife, novelist Tabitha King, paid around $1.4 million in Maine taxes in 2013 and a similar amount in 2014. He also said that the King Foundation gives grants from $3 to $5 million annually, "mostly in Maine."

The implication of the statement was therefore very clear, and King has demanded an apology.

LePage responded to a question about the spat during a public discussion by saying he never stated King moved to Florida to dodge income taxes. Instead, he contended that King "is not in Maine right now."

In an email response last week, King wrote: "For a man with a reputation for straight talk, Governor LePage is gilding the lily and playing with semantics. The clear implication of his original statement was that I moved to Florida to avoid paying state income taxes. It's not so, and it's not the way he phrased his response."

"He still owes me an apology, but I don't expect to collect on that IOU. I repeat: he's not man enough to admit he made a mistake or knowingly misrepresented the facts. Now let's let this rest."

When LePage made his initial statement, King initially tweeted that the governor "was full of the stuff that makes the grass grow green." After the LePage administration corrected the governor's speech, King tweeted, "Governor Paul LePage implied that I don't pay my taxes. I do. Every cent. I think he needs to man up and apologize."

On Sunday, King tweeted, "No apology from Governor LePage. Some guys are a lot better at dishing it out than taking it back."

Meanwhile, there has been no reaction from Quimby, who founded Burt's Bees, a personal care products company that she later sold. Her Facebook page says she resides in Palm Beach, Florida, though she continues to have ties to Maine through her Portland-based Quimby Family Foundation and management of her woodlands in Northern Maine.