Bitcoin

Bitcoin Billionaire Michael Saylor, Company Settles DC Tax Fraud Lawsuit

Published

1 year ago

3 June, 2024

Bitcoin Billionaire Michael Saylor, Company Settles DC Tax Fraud Lawsuit

Billionaire Bitcoin Investor Michael Saylor and the Software Company He Founded have agreed to pay $40 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the D.C. attorney general alleging he defrauded the city of millions in taxes by falsely claiming to live in Virginia or Florida, D.C. officials said.

Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb said the resolution marked the largest income tax recovery in the city’s history and should serve as a message to district residents trying to dodge tax bills by pretending to live elsewhere.

“No one in the District of Columbia, no matter how rich or powerful, is above the law,” Schwalb said in a statement.

Under the agreement, Saylor and MicroStrategy, an enterprise software company he founded in 1989, deny violating district law and have not admitted any wrongdoing.

An attorney representing Saylor and the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement in 2022Saylor said he lives in Florida, a place he calls “the center of my personal and family life.”

In court filings, lawyers from the attorney general’s office argued that Saylor lived in a 7,000-square-foot penthouse on the Georgetown waterfront or on yachts docked in the Potomac River. But they said that from 2005 to 2021 he paid no income taxes to the city.

According to Forbes, Saylor has a net worth of $4.6 billion, driven by large investments in bitcoin.

Saylor first misrepresented himself as a resident of Virginia, where taxes are lower, and then Florida, where there is no personal income tax, the District alleged in court filings. DC said MicroStrategy knowingly submitted false records as part of the effort. In all, Saylor avoided paying more than $25 million in district taxes, the city argued.

“Saylor openly boasted about his tax evasion scheme, encouraging his friends to follow his example and arguing that anyone who paid taxes to the District was stupid,” Schwalb said in Monday’s statement.

The city’s lawsuit included a 2012 Facebook post by Saylor evoking another billionaire inventor — albeit a fictional inventor from the “Iron Man” films. Saylor’s post came with a photo of his Georgetown apartment building, where he combined three penthouse apartments into one. It said he was “looking wistfully at my future home” as he waited for his architect to “crack the whip at the contractors and herd the cats. I wonder if Tony Stark would be so patient…”

The district said Excel records of Saylor’s location maintained by his company showed he met the threshold for needing to pay income taxes to the city. For example, he was present for 313 days in 2015, they said. The limit is 183 days.

Saylor’s lawyers, led by Eugene Scalia — Secretary of Labor in the Trump administration and son of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — argued in court filings last year that the city’s case was a “speculative story of collusion” riddled with flaws. fatal legalities.

In a 2023 filing in D.C. Superior Court, Saylor’s lawyers argued that he “suffered reputational harm” due to fraud allegations brought by the attorney general’s office. They said the allegations were “considered with remarkable indifference given their seriousness” and Saylor’s prominent role at MicroStrategy, a public company based in the Tysons area of Fairfax County, Virginia.

His attorneys argued that the district’s claims against Saylor should have been dismissed for procedural and legal reasons. “The District’s tax claims are subject to rejection because there has been no tax assessment, which is a necessary prerequisite,” they wrote in a filing.

The district joined the case after whistleblowers sued Saylor under the city’s False Claims Act. This law allows people to sue in cases of alleged tax fraud – and then receive a large payout from whatever the city eventually collects.

Saylor’s lawyers said this pointed to another legal problem in the city’s approach. The change in the law that allows “vindictive” private individuals to “prosecute tax-related actions… has fundamentally changed district government” and, therefore, violates the Home Rule Act that governs their affairs, they argued in court filings.

But rather than fight over the adequacy of the provisions of the False Claims Act, the sides reached a settlement.

How much money What whistleblowers will receive is subject to negotiation with the city hall. If they can’t reach an agreement, a judge will decide. The money will come out of the $40 million total Saylor agreed to pay over 14 days. He also agreed to comply with the district’s tax laws.

The agreement prohibits any future action against Saylor or MicroStrategy On this matter.

The agreement said Saylor, executive chairman of MicroStrategy, would file a return and pay income taxes in the city “in any current or future tax year” where he owned or rented a residence and was physically present in the city for at least 183 days.

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Bitcoin

What to watch for in the markets

Published

11 months ago

21 July, 2024

SatoshiTimes Staff

Photo: Andrew Harnik (Getty Images)

After witnessing one of the largest global IT outages on record, affecting the travel, finance and healthcare sectors worldwideThis week is set to see more political drama, events, and earnings reports from tech giants.

Donald Trump’s ‘Lovefest’ Sets Jamie Dimon Up for Consideration for Treasury Secretary Job

Let’s take a look at what awaits us:

Major companies will release their earnings reports

Major tech companies and others will release their earnings reports this week, paving the way for what the second half of 2024 will look like.

Monday

Verizon will report earnings before the start of operations.

Tuesday

Coca-Cola, Comcast and UPS are all set to report earnings before the market opens.
Tesla will report earnings in the morning, while General Motors will report earnings in the evening.
Alphabet and Visa will report results after the market closes.

Wednesday

AT&T will release its report before the market opens.
Ford and Chipotle will report earnings after the market closes.

Thursday

Earnings reports from AstraZeneca, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines will be released before the market opens.

Trump to speak at Bitcoin conference

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will speak at the next Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Tennesseewhich is scheduled for July 25-27. While this is the first time a presidential candidate will attend the conference, it has sparked a debate over whether the crypto-friendly Trump will receive support from the crypto community in the upcoming election.

In addition to Trump, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will also discuss crypto during the conference. Crypto advocates such as ARK Investment’s Cathie Wood, MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor, and whistleblower Edward Snowden are among some prominent names who will be participating in the conference.

Ether ETFs are on the way

New Ether Spot ETFs are set to begin trading on Tuesday, July 23. Much like the spot Bitcoin ETFs, these ETFs will allow investors to buy the second most popular cryptocurrency like stocks. BlackRock, Ark Invest/21Shares, VanEck, Grayscale, Fidelity, Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, and Invesco/Galaxy Digital are all set to offer Ether ETFs. Crypto asset manager Bitwise predict that trading in the Ether ETF will drive the price of Ether higher, potentially surpassing $5,000.

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Bitcoin

Cryptocurrency’s Biggest Winners and Losers in a Second Trump Presidency

Published

11 months ago

21 July, 2024

SatoshiTimes Staff

Cryptocurrency’s Biggest Winners and Losers in a Second Trump Presidency

Bitcoin miners and cryptocurrency companies that have been blocked from going public in the U.S. could ultimately be the biggest winners in the digital asset world under a second Donald Trump presidency. Foreign companies at risk of losing market share could end up being the biggest losers.

That’s the view that’s taking hold among market participants and observers in the wake of the former president’s growing embrace of cryptocurrency as his chances of election grow. survey released Thursday by CBS News showed Trump with the majority — 52 percent — of likely voters in his likely November rematch with President Joe Biden.

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Cryptocurrency Markets Look Ready to ‘Send’ as Stars Align, According to Investor Chris Burniske

Published

11 months ago

21 July, 2024

SatoshiTimes Staff

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Cryptocurrency Markets Look Ready to ‘Send’ as Stars Align, According to Investor Chris Burniske

Cryptocurrency investor Chris Burniske says Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SUN) and the cryptocurrency market in general seem poised for a run.

Former Head of Cryptocurrency at ARK Invest account his 292,200 followers on social media platform X that several catalysts are aligning, suggesting that digital asset markets are on the verge of a bull run.

According to Burniske, a partner at venture capital firm Placeholder, the highly anticipated launch of Ethereum-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking at an upcoming Bitcoin event, and the current state of the BTC, ETH, and SOL charts all suggest significant optimism for the cryptocurrency markets.

“With ETH ETFs set to go live, Trump speaking at The Bitcoin Conference, and BTC, ETH, and SOL charts looking [they do] (while stocks are weak), it’s hard to imagine a world where we don’t ship next week.”

Reuters recently reported that preliminary approval for ETH ETFs has been granted as the Bitcoin Conference is scheduled to take place from July 25-27.

BTC, ETH, and SOL are trading at $67,333, $3,528, and $174 at the time of writing, respectively.

The venture capitalist too provides an update on his prediction that the total crypto market cap will eventually hit $10 trillion. According to his chart, the path to $10 trillion is currently “23%” complete, as it sits around $2.2 trillion.

Source: Chris BurniskeX

Earlier this month, Burniske he said in an interview with Real Vision CEO Raoul Paul that he has his eye on the Move ecosystem, which was originally built by social media giant Meta and then used to develop layer 1 blockchains Sui (IUE) and Apts (APT).

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Bitcoin

Here’s the next target for BTC before bulls can hold out for $70K

Published

11 months ago

21 July, 2024

SatoshiTimes Staff

Here’s the next target for BTC before bulls can hold out for $70K

Bitcoin’s recovery is going well, and the market is seemingly poised to create a new all-time high in the near term.

Technical analysis

Per NegotiationRage

The daily chart

As the daily chart shows, the price of Bitcoin has been rising since it broke above the 200-day moving average.

The market has also reclaimed the $60K and $65K levels and is moving towards the $68K resistance zone, which could be the last hurdle before creating a new all-time high. With the RSI also indicating that the price has clear bullish momentum, it could be just a matter of time.

Source: TradingView

The 4-hour chart

Looking at the 4-hour chart, it is evident that the price has been rising rapidly since breaking the downtrend line to the upside. The market also broke the $65K resistance level with momentum, turning it into a support.

While almost everything points to a new record high in the coming weeks, there is one worrying sign. The RSI is showing a clear bearish divergence between recent price highs, which could indicate a correction or even a reversal in the near term.

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Cryptocurrency Charts by TradingView.

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