Roger Ver, sometimes called “Bitcoin Jesus”, has been accused by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) of not paying crypto taxes.
The tax fraud of one of the early Bitcoin investors refers to the capital gains on hundreds of millions of dollars, collected from the sale of BTC in 2017.
Ver was arrested this weekend in Spain, based on US criminal charges. The United States will request his extradition in order to prosecute him.
Roger Ver accused of not paying crypto taxes for the sale of Bitcoin in 2017
As emerged, it seems that Roger Ver, one of the early Bitcoin investors, sometimes called “Bitcoin Jesus,” has been accused by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) of not paying crypto taxes.
Specifically, the accusation speaks of postal fraud, tax evasion, and filing false tax returns. In practice, it seems that Ver did not voluntarily pay taxes on the capital gains of hundreds of millions of dollars, collected by selling Bitcoin (BTC) in 2017.
The “Bitcoin Jesus” is accused of not filing tax returns for the income derived from the sale of his assets, or not paying an “exit tax” on capital gains.
This while in 2014, Ver would have renounced his American citizenship, starting businesses and obtaining citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis.
In this regard, here is how the DoJ text quotes:
“Even though Ver was not a US citizen at the time, he was still legally required to report to the IRS and pay taxes on some distributions such as dividends from MemoryDealers and Agilestar, which were US companies”
Indeed, Ver, originally from Santa Clara, California, was the owner of MemoryDealers.com Inc. and Agilestar.com Inc., two companies that sold computers and network equipment. Starting from 2011, Ver would have started buying bitcoin for himself and for his US companies.
Roger Ver evades crypto taxes in 2017: the accusation and arrest in Spain
The US Department of Justice would have calculated that Ver’s sale of BTC in November 2017 would have earned him 240 million dollars in cash. On this amount, Ver would have caused a loss to the tax authorities of at least 48 million dollars.
Not only, for the DoJ, Ver would have actually hidden the information about the BTC held and sold by him personally and by his companies even from his accountant, so that the evasion was intentional.
“Ver would have hidden from his accountant that he received and sold the bitcoins from MemoryDealers and Agilestar that year. Consequently, Ver’s individual tax return for 2017 did not report any gains or pay any tax related to the distribution of bitcoins from MemoryDealers and Agilestar to him.”
At the moment, Ver has been arrested this weekend in Spain based on US criminal charges. The United States will request his extradition in order to prosecute him.
Crypto-exchange programs dedicated to crypto taxes
While the famous Ver is awaiting trial, the issue of taxes on crypto has also been taken up over time by industry companies, such as crypto-exchanges.
Among the most recent programs, in fact, there is the one launched by Bitget. Last September, in fact, Bitget integrated the API of the tax reporting platform Koinly, making it easier to calculate taxes on cryptocurrencies.
Not only that, last May 2023, the famous Binance launched a dedicated tool for crypto taxes in Italy: the Tax Assistant. In this way, users from the Bel Paese can have the platform’s support to create the tax report.