Feds after Black Billionaire Robert F Smith — HE SETTLES for $139m; AVOIDS INDICTMENT

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He folded on the investigation:

Report: Billionaire Robert F. Smith Will Settle Federal Tax Evasion Case For $140 Million

Billionaire Robert F. Smith, founder of Vista Equity Partners and the wealthiest Black man in America, will settle a four-year federal investigation into tax crimes for $140 million, according to a Wednesday report from Bloomberg.

His tax troubles arose from a $1 billion investment in Vista’s first fund two decades ago by an offshore foundation tied to Robert Brockman, a Houston software businessman, people familiar with the matter have said. The Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service have been investigating whether Smith failed to pay U.S. taxes on about $200 million in assets that moved through offshore structures tied to Brockman, those people said.

The same prosecutors who have pursued Smith turned their attention to Brockman, who has been the subject of a grand jury investigation in San Francisco into whether he committed tax and money-laundering crimes, according to the people familiar with the Brockman matter.

On Thursday, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, David Anderson, and the IRS chief of criminal investigation, Jim Lee, will hold a news conference about a “new significant law enforcement action,” according to an advisory. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney declined to comment on the substance of the news conference or the Smith agreement.

Prosecutors in the Brockman matter, who were investigating “a major and very large tax fraud” in the U.S., believe $1.5 billion of revenue was fraudulently concealed, according to Bermuda court records.

Smith’s settlement includes a non-prosecution agreement that says he failed to pay about $30 million in taxes, with penalties and interest making up the remainder of the expected payout, according to a person familiar with a call that Smith conducted Wednesday. Smith said on the call that over three years, he failed to file accurate reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, known as FBARs, the person said.
Billionaire Robert Smith to Pay $140 Million Over Tax Probe
 

☑︎#VoteDemocrat

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He start talking about reperations and this happens. All billionaires do this shyt, but they come for the black one.

:mjpls:

Exactly. Wake me up when they go this hard at investigating that clowns taxes. :coffee:

Wow, this is REALLY fukked up yo

I thought billionares taking advantage of the system was unacceptable? folks are too inconstant for change to happen

Meanwhile the rest of the Colis white daddies are out here free

still nikka

This is why Al Haymon moves in the shadows. I wouldn't be surprised if he a billionaire to.

I'm so pissed right now
this is sabotage of the highest order
He was working behind the scenes on advancing black lives and look what happens


The minute he provided for those young men at Morehouse and spoke up for reparations he has been in their crosshairs

I'm not about to read a novella but I agree, it's crazy they come after the one black one.

He paid for my brother's education. fukk this country. Go after the criminals in the White House.

In America you'll never be free
Middle fingers up, fukk the police
Damn, can't a nikka just breathe? - Nas

they "come for" everybody eventually. No one really gets away.

CEO's get sentences for fraud every month B.
and they be in their later years of age.

it's fukked up, but if he did the crime then :manny:

Trump probably trying to make an example out of him. Can’t let Smith’s kind get too uppity :mjpls:


Damn it sounds like a criminal case is inevitable. That's a damn shame.

When he made those donations, I knew it was coming. :francis:

Word to FACTA, why I dropped the passport and have never looked back!

He would better off once he beats it to join the team.

:blessed:

The double standard is appalling. Out of all of the crooked multi-millionaires, billionaires, and corporations this is who they target? Sickening. I really hope he beats this.

That uppity negro. Let's give him something to keep him awake at night:mjpls:.

Sounds like he can stay in with his company. Definitely a win.

Settles for $139m and avoids indictment :whoo: :banderas: :blessed:

at least he stays out of jail :whoo: :whew::mjlit:


tumblr_m2jrnpo6ZV1qfyuo0o1_500.gif


He had to flip on his man though and drop some dough :francis::wow:

pocket change :mjgrin:





https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/press-release/file/1327941/download


Billionaire Robert Smith Admits Evading Taxes for Years

Billionaire Robert Smith Admits Evading Taxes for Years
David VoreacosOctober 16, 2020, 10:36 AM EDT
  • Smith signs non-prosecution deal and helps U.S. in bigger case

  • Vista CEO hid assets, lied to IRS as he built investing empire
-1x-1.jpg

Robert Smith at the World Economic Forum in January. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg
Billionaire Robert F. Smith has been hailed as a brilliant investor who built Vista Equity Partners into a private equity powerhouse and a generous philanthropist lauded for paying off the student debt of Morehouse College’s entire graduating class last year.

But federal prosecutors undercut that image on Thursday, saying Smith concealed income and evaded taxes for 15 years by using foreign trusts, corporations and bank accounts to cheat the Internal Revenue Service.

Smith, 57, avoided prosecution only by cooperating in a case against Robert Brockman, a Houston businessman accused Thursday of using a web of Caribbean entities to hide $2 billion in income in what prosecutors called the largest U.S. tax case ever against an individual.

“Smith committed serious crimes, but he also agreed to cooperate,” said David Anderson, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco. “Smith’s agreement to cooperate has put him on a path away from indictment.”

Smith signed a non-prosecution agreement in which he admitted he repeatedly made false filings with the IRS, even after he attempted to enter an amnesty program in 2014. He agreed to pay more than $139 million in back taxes, interest and penalties after a four-year investigation first reported by Bloomberg News. He will cooperate for five years.

A statement of facts that Smith agreed to chips away at the carefully crafted public image that he had erected over the past five years as he has used a charitable foundation he runs and his family money to donate hundreds of millions of dollars to various philanthropic causes. Recipients included Cornell University, Carnegie Hall and the United Negro College Fund.

Smith admitted that he used $2.5 million in untaxed funds to buy and renovate a vacation home in Sonoma, California, paying for it in 2005 with private equity funds deposited into accounts in the British Virgin Islands and Banque Bonhotein Switzerland. In 2010, Smith moved to Switzerland for a time and bought two ski properties and a commercial property in the French Alps, all with untaxed money in the Swiss account. Smith, who owns several homes throughout the U.S., now lives in Austin, Texas.

He transferred more than $13 million from Banque Bonhote to a U.S account. Smith used the money “to build a home and make improvements to property that he owned in Colorado and to fund charitable activities on that property for inner city children and wounded veterans,” according to his statement of facts.


A spokesman for Banque Bonhote didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

Smith understood that Brockman’s offer in 2000 to invest $1 billion to seed Smith’s first private equity fund would rely on money concealed from the IRS, headmitted. Smith viewed the offer as a unique business opportunity and willingly went along, he said. He also took Brockman’s advice that he work with a Houston lawyer to structure his own foreign entity, Belize-based Excelsior Trust, and paid the attorney about $800,000 to create a false paper trail involving related entities from 2000 to 2014.

More: Houston Tech Mogul Hit With ‘Largest-Ever Tax Charge,’ U.S. Says

In 2014, Smith directed Excelsior to contribute $182 million in shares in a Nevis-based entity, Flash Holdings LLC. The shares went to Fund II Foundation, a U.S.-based charity that he co-founded. Smith falsely claimed that he’d been required to make that charitable contribution as part of his original agreement with Brockman. Had it been true that the offshore assets had always been designated for charity, it could have supported the view that Smith didn’t owe taxes on them.

Fund II Foundation lists Smith as founding director and president. Its high-profile contributions have gone to fight breast cancer afflicting women, create science programs for Black students and preserve the homes of Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent Black Americans.

Beyond paying $139 million, Smith agreed to abandon refund claims of $182 million based on charitable deductions filed in 2018 and 2019.

Smith took steps to come clean after Banque Bonhote urged him in November 2013 and January 2014 “to report his non-compliance” to the IRS, according to his admission. He applied in March 2014 for amnesty from prosecution through an IRS program used by more than 56,000 Americans who failed to report offshore assets. But the IRS rejected him.

He then filed a false report of foreign bank and financial accounts, known as an FBAR, failing to declare his financial interest in his BVI and Swiss accounts, headmitted. He also submitted a false tax return that failed to declare his interest in those accounts.

Smith’s false filings continued. He entered a “streamlined” disclosure program but filed false FBARs and tax returns spanning several years, according to his admission.

“Smith willfully failed to report on Streamlined Tax Returns over $200 million of partnership income” distributed to Flash from private equity funds from 2005 through 2014, according to the statement of facts.

Smith has been represented by lawyers of some renown in the white-collar and tax defense world. His non-prosecution agreement was signed by five lawyers, including three from Kirkland & Ellis, the firm where William Barr worked until he became President Donald Trump’s attorney general.

Two of the Kirkland & Ellis lawyers are Mark Filip, a former deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush, and W. Neil Eggleston, a former White House counsel for President Barack Obama.

— With assistance by Patrick Winters

(Adds Smith agreeing to cooperate for five years)



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Arithmetic

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I saw the other thread. It was tied to another guy's wrongdoing and as a result he had to pay $100+ million as a civil settlement. Sickening. I hope when Biden wins they investigate every investor who is Trump adjacent for any insider trading done in the last year. For those of you saying it's win, the details are very vague. These were funds invested into his firm. And he has to pay $140 million for not paying $30 million in taxes? Do you know how much Trump has not paid? And he has yet to face justice?

Elizabeth Warren demands investigation into elite investors accessing Trump briefings - CNN
 
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I saw the other thread. It was tied to another guy's wrongdoing and as a result he had to pay $100 Million as a civil settlement. Sickening. I hope when Biden wins they investigate every investor who is Trump adjacent for any insider trading done in the last year.

Elizabeth Warren demands investigation into elite investors accessing Trump briefings - CNN
Its fukked up because he got dragged into it by someone else that the feds want but dragged this guy over the coals.

But its funny because no one ever writes an article on THAT guy: Robert Brockman until today :stopitslime:











 
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