from Hacker News

Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

by datascienced on 5/1/24, 4:38 AM with 105 comments

  • by 111111101101 on 5/1/24, 6:43 AM

    I'll never forget "Bitcoin Jesus" making this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP1YsMlrfF0

  • by afc on 5/1/24, 5:53 AM

    Not very surprising. He had already been arrested, back in 2002, for selling illegal stuff on eBay. He was somewhat of an attacker of Bitcoin, promoting his "bcash" fork.

  • by blackhawkC17 on 5/1/24, 6:50 AM

    > Around that time, Ver allegedly took possession of those bitcoins and in November 2017 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.

    > In total, Ver is alleged to have caused a loss to the IRS of at least $48 million.

    Lesson: You can’t run away from Uncle Sam even after signing away your citizenship.

  • by janmo on 5/1/24, 9:59 AM

    Very interesting that he got arrested in Spain for tax fraud, just like John McAfee.

    Things look quite bad for him, he went all in on Bitcoin Cash, and even used leverage. He defaulted on CoinFLEX and owes them $47M in USDC. Roger Ver went from owning 131,000 Bitcoins in 2014 (worth almost 8 billion USD as of today) to pretty much broke.

  • by Hermel on 5/1/24, 6:24 AM

    More and more countries are implementing an "exit tax" when wealthy people try to give up their citizenship. Also, the US authorities make it increasingly hard to do so. I wouldn't recommend anyone to become a US citizen. Once you are in, it is very costly to get out again.

  • by TheDudeMan on 5/1/24, 6:17 AM

    Interesting title by justice.gov. Tax evasion is illegal regardless of your background / investment portfolio, so why relevant? Sowing sentiment?

  • by hggh on 5/1/24, 9:08 AM

    > Ver was arrested this weekend in Spain based on the U.S. criminal charges.

    John McAfee was also arrested in Spain in 2021 for tax evasion taxes, and was found dead in prison.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27609027

  • by keyme on 5/1/24, 7:45 AM

    Isn't there some kind of statue of limitations in us tax law? That's stuff from 11 years ago.

  • by vdddv on 5/1/24, 7:13 AM

    @MemoryDealers but not active here apart from a 2012 comment https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=MemoryDealers

  • by tmn007 on 5/1/24, 7:55 AM

    I remember getting the cisco compatible switch optics from Memory dealers. Heaps cheaper than Cisco- $5 an optic compared to $1000.

  • by andrewstuart on 5/1/24, 7:14 AM

    Look, if you owe lots of tax its because you made lots of money. Pay the tax, be happy.

    I just don't get why some people are so obsessed with not paying tax.

    You don't have to pay tax when you didn't earn money so stop being so stingy.

    I know lots of people who go to extraordinary lengths to reduce the amount of tax they will pay even if it means they end up with less money in their pocket. It's crazy. Needing to pay tax seem to make some people go nuts.

    I know one person who would rather make half the salary because it means less is paid in tax. I just roll my eyes.

    Just pay it. It pays for defence, education, health, government services and a bajillion other things.

    Get a grip, tax obsessives.

  • by nullc on 5/1/24, 10:29 AM

    Fun fact: Ver's twitter account https://twitter.com/rogerkver/ has the "Government agent" grey checkmark.

  • by kaliqt on 5/1/24, 6:47 AM

    Absolute power corrupts absolutely, never has this been more obvious to see than when nation states gain excessive power over others.