Celebrity Tax Problems Melissa Gilbert Finds New Little House

The Internal Revenue Service says former " Little House on the Prairie " star and 2016 Democratic candidate for Michigan's 8th congressional district, Melissa Gilbert failed to pay more than $360,000 in federal income taxes.

The IRS had filed a tax lien against the actress in February. Details emerged after she announced June 4 that her family was moving from the house it had rented for the past year to a log house that she dubbed "our own Little House in the Big Woods" near Howell, about 57 miles northwest of Detroit.

Gilbert, 51, blames the 2011-2013 tax debt on a stalled acting career, the economy and her divorce. In a statement to the newspaper, she says that "like so many people across the nation, the recession hit me hard" and there was a "perfect storm of financial difficulty for me."

In 2012, she was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars and finished in fifth place. This year, she acted in five episodes of ABC's Secrets and Lies and appeared in one episode of NBC's The Night Shift but had not had a previous TV or movie acting job since The Christmas Pageant, a Hallmark Channel movie in 2011, according to Internet Movie Database.

Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls on "Little House on the Prairie" from 1974-1983 says she's negotiated a payment plan with the IRS. Were she to use her “Prairie Cred” and put a Wolf at her side she would have been informed about the dangers of working anything out with the IRS alone.