Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy Charged with Tax Fraud

Michael Saylor is being prosecuted by the District of Columbia, where he currently resides, for tax fraud. D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine made the announcement Wednesday on Twitter.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor is being prosecuted for tax fraud, Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine announced Wednesday.

NEW: Today, we’re suing Michael Saylor – a billionaire tech executive who has lived in the District for more than a decade but has never paid any DC income taxes – for tax fraud.

– AG Karl A. Racine (@AGKarlRacine) August 31, 2022

“Today, we’re suing Michael Saylor – a billionaire technology executive who has lived in the District for more than a decade but never paid income taxes – for tax fraud“, Karl Racine wrote in a statement.

Karl Racine added that Washington D.C. was also suing MicroStrategy “for conspiring to help [Saylor] evade the taxes he legally owes on hundreds of millions of dollars he earned while living in Washington.“

Michael Saylor is best known in the crypto space for his consistent public support of Bitcoin. He frequently appears on crypto conference circuits to extol the virtues of the market’s flagship crypto-currency and encourage attendees to accumulate as much as possible.

In this regard, Saylor is putting his money where his mouth is: his company, MicroStrategy, which was originally a business intelligence software company, has shifted to a bitcoin accumulation strategy under Saylor’s leadership. Earlier this month, Michael Saylor stepped down as CEO of MicroStrategy but remained chairman of the board; he also assumed a key leadership position focused on “ Bitcoin acquisition strategy and related bitcoin advocacy initiatives. “.

This isn’t the first time Saylor and his company have had run-ins with the law. In 2000, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil charges of accounting fraud against MicroStrategy for misrepresenting the company’s financial information for two years. That case ended in a settlement that resulted in Saylor disgorging $8.2 million and paying an additional $350,000 in penalties.

MicroStrategy’s stock dropped 6% on news of the lawsuit.