Roger Ver Charged with Mail Fraud, Tax Evasion & Filing False Tax Returns
Early Bitcoin investor Roger Ver was apprehended in Spain over the weekend, and U.S. authorities will seek his extradition.
- Ver is accused of neglecting to file tax returns on asset sales and failing to pay a "United States exit tax" on capital gains after he gave up U.S. citizenship and set up businesses and secured citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis.
- The indictment claims that by June 2017, Ver’s two U.S. registered companies, MemoryDealers and Agilestar, owned approximately 70,000 BTC. In November 2017, Ver allegedly sold tens of thousands of them on cryptocurrency exchanges for approximately $240 million in cash.
"Even though Ver was not then a U.S. citizen, he was still legally required to report to the IRS and pay tax on certain distributions such as dividends from MemoryDealers and Agilestar, which were U.S. corporations. Ver allegedly concealed from his accountant that he had received and sold MemoryDealers’ and Agilestar’s bitcoins that year. As a result, Ver’s 2017 individual income tax return did not report any gain or pay any tax related to the distribution of MemoryDealers’ and Agilestar’s bitcoins to him," was stated in the press release.
- "In total, Ver is alleged to have caused a loss to the IRS of at least $48 million," was stated in the indicment.
