Bitcoin Jesus Roger Ver pledges $49.9 million to settle U.S. tax evasion case

Mars Finance reports that on October 18, earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a deferred prosecution agreement with “Bitcoin Jesus” Roger Ver, under which charges of fraud and tax evasion will be dropped in exchange for a maximum fine of $49.9 million. As one of the earliest Bitcoin evangelists, Ver purchased large quantities of Bitcoin in 2011 for less than $3 million. In February 2014, to avoid high tax liabilities, he acquired citizenship in the Caribbean nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis and renounced his U.S. citizenship the following month. At the time, he and his companies held at least 131,000 Bitcoins, valued at over $70 million based on prevailing prices. He believed that changing his nationality would allow him to escape America’s high tax burden. However, America’s stringent “expatriation tax” completely thwarted his plans. Under U.S. tax law, qualifying expatriates must treat all their global assets as if they were sold on the day before expatriation and pay capital gains tax accordingly. Although Ver filed and paid $1.03 million in taxes, he failed to report his personal Bitcoin holdings and significantly undervalued his company’s assets. A decade later, the IRS uncovered his fraudulent tax evasion (which is not subject to a statute of limitations), ultimately forcing him to pay up to $49.9 million in back taxes, penalties, and interest—48 times the amount he had originally self-reported.