Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine announced today (1) that he formally filed a civil lawsuit against business software company MicroStrategy and its co-founder Michael Saylor, accusing him of tax evasion, and MicroStrategy assisted him in tax evasion.
According to Karl Racine, Michael Saylor never paid any income tax while he was a resident of Washington, D.C., and owed $25 million in income tax during that period. The Washington Attorney General’s Office said it was seeking to recover unpaid income tax and fines from Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy, which it said could total more than $100 million.
The lawsuit alleges that although Michael Saylor has lived in the U.S. capital Washington for more than a decade, he has been falsely claiming he lives in low-tax jurisdictions such as Florida or Virginia, where he also buys real estate and registers to vote in those states. , to avoid paying income tax in Washington. However, he has lived in Washington for at least 183 days a year, meeting the minimum requirement of being a ” legal resident .”
In addition, Michael Saylor once bragged to friends about his tax evasion methods, saying that MicroStrategy knew that he had lived in Washington for more than half a year and conspired to assist him in tax evasion. Karl Racine said MicroStrategy conspired to help Michael Saylor “dodge the hundreds of millions of dollars he owes in taxes while living in Washington.”
“His company reported W-2 forms for the 2014 to 2021 tax years to the IRS, and defendant Michael Saylor’s address is his Florida home, not his actual residence,” the lawsuit states.
Michael Saylor recently resigned as CEO of MicroStrategy without warning and became executive chairman of the board, citing a desire to “focus on buying more bitcoin.”
In response to the tax evasion charges, Michael Saylor said in a statement, “Ten years ago, I bought a historic house in Miami Beach and moved there from Virginia, even though MicroStrategy is in Virginia, But Florida is where I live, where I vote, and it’s the center of my personal and family life.”
“I respectfully disagree with Washington, D.C.’s position and look forward to a fair trial in court,” he added.
MicroStrategy said in a statement that the case was a “personal tax matter” involving Michael Saylor and that the company had no “responsibility to monitor his personal taxes” and that “Washington, D.C.’s claim against the company is false and we will vigorously defend it. This overexpansion.”
Under Michael Saylor, who founded the business software company in 1989, MicroStrategy has borrowed to buy billions of dollars in bitcoin in recent years. According to data from BitcoinTreasuries , the company currently holds 129,698 bitcoins with an original cost of $3.977 billion and a current market value of $2.588 billion.