Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

[111111101101]

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

[victor22]

Legendary piece of bitcoin history btw I've lost all my bitcoin twitce in my 10 years involved, but its so much fun to fuck the system

[afc]

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.

[hggh]

For reference, that "illegal stuff" were just fireworks (too powerful, I guess) [0]. Those "attacks" are fully explained in his recent book "Hijacking Bitcoin: The Hidden History of BTC" [1]. He didn't fork Bitcoin, he just proposed its name: Bitcoin Cash [2], which is not "bcash" [2][3].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ver [1] https://www.hijackingbitcoin.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_Cash [3] https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/why-some-people-call-bit...

[lawn]

Roger has consistently been promoting the same ideals from the beginning.

BCH was also never "his" fork, it was just the fork he started to support.

"bash" is a slur to attack the BCH fork, same as the character assassination that Roger has been subjected to.

Finally, he sold firecrackers on eBay.

[blackhawkC17]

> 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.

[awrence]

I'm not a tax expert so wondering, shouldn't the potential loss be computed off the non payment of exit tax at date of exit or 2014 levels? (which would have computed to much lower than 48mm)

[janmo]

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.

[arisAlexis]

How can you possibly know he is broke

[Hermel]

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.

[tromp]

As a Dutch citizen, I can leave the Netherlands to live elsewhere and no longer have to file Dutch taxes.

US citizens have an IRS filing requirement even when living abroad.

What other countries behave like the US in this regard?

[repomies69]

US is likely the only jurisdiction that can actually enforce it. Other countries can't just call US government to send them back if they suspect they owe some tax.

[scotty79]

Would it be really silly to just get rid of US citizenship as soon as possible?

You can live and work in US without citizenship, right?

Which citizenship would be good to get instead of US?

[jimbob45]

Why not just maintain dual citizenship instead of needlessly renouncing?

[throwgh]

Many billionaires who move to USA, UK, Canada and Australia are corrupt/oligarchs/tax Dodgers. They are ok even to loose 50% of their wealth to get protection

[TheDudeMan]

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

[blackhawkC17]

It’s a normal thing for the DOJ. They write press releases like articles, so you’ll see titles like “Popular businessman,” “Tech Company Founder charged with fraud,” “Social Media Influencer charged with…” etc.

[chefandy]

> Sowing sentiment?

Yes. Trials are adversarial- persuasion often matters as much or more than facts in formal legal writing. Blog posts presenting reason for prosecuting someone even moreso... Public perception, politics, etc etc etc.

[hggh]

> 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

[gear54rus]

- anything to declare?

- yeah, don't go to Spain

(c) Snatch

[keyme]

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

[orionsbelt]

Not for fraudulent returns

[vdddv]

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

[tmn007]

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

[nullc]

Apparently one way memory dealers products were sometimes cheaper was due being counterfeit:

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-4th-circuit/1627804.htm...

[andrewstuart]

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.

[rank0]

Theres a huge difference between legally optimizing your tax burden and committing tax fraud. If you want to give more money than is legally required to the federal government so they can light it on fire I guess that’s your prerogative…

[hamandcheese]

I hate taxes because US tax code is pretty slanted against income earners. It just doesn't feel great to take home proportionally less and less as you work harder. We don't treat corporations or capital holders the same way, and that makes me bitter.

[nootropicat]

Not paying taxes is the single best thing anyone can do. You can get an average market return and you will still move up, relatively, because most people pay taxes. Often it's the difference between having to work or not.

Old money doesn't pay taxes through international arrangements. It's only for the working and lower middle class. Gifts from foreign people, companies and trusts are completely tax free in America for example. It's not talked about unlike bullshit minimum taxes on new money because same people controlling the media use it.

Income tax is primarily designed to keep elites in power and to prevent social mobility, they don't have to do anything special, not paying taxes over decades is an incredible advantage. If you start poor the only realistic option is to risk evasion until you make enough to start not paying legally, and the limitations period on tax evasion runs out.

[romeros]

It's challenging when dealing with millions of dollars. $5 million is a substantial amount, and a 37% capital gains tax would reduce it to approximately $3 million. Essentially, you would lose $2 million to taxes.

$5m is life changing.

Having said that it is stupid to commit tax fraud and live a life of perpetual fear.

[hggh]

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

But you have to pay a fixed VAT for what you buy, even if that is food or clothing to survive. Remember, you pay twice.

[globular-toast]

Like many things in life this makes sense when you understand that a large number of people fundamentally believe the world is a zero-sum game. They can only feel like they've won it someone else loses.

[throwaway22032]

I don't owe you anything.

[nullc]

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

[hggh]

Hello troll,

https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/kn25yb/an_insight_into...

[lawn]

Fun fact: Gregory Maxwell (aka nullc) has been on the forefront of the character assassination of Roger, and he can't let this opportunity to take a stab go to waste.

For some insight into the mind of nullc, see his abusive Wikipedia behavior[0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminis...

[kaliqt]

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