Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkov, founder of online bank Tinkoff, has paid more than $ 500 million after being found guilty of tax evasion in the United States, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday (October 29th). Oleg Tinkov, who pleaded guilty on October 1, was sentenced to one year on probation and paid $ 508,936,184, a sum that includes taxes and their interest, penalties and a lump sum fine.
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He was charged in September 2019 with evading the American tax authorities (IRS) by hiding large stock market capital gains from the authorities while he renounced his American nationality. US citizens must declare and pay taxes on their income to the IRS even if they live and work outside the United States. He was arrested in February 2020 in London. However, the British authorities refused to extradite him to the United States because he suffered from a severe form of leukemia.
Born in Russia, 53-year-old Oleg Tinkov obtained US citizenship in 1996. In 2006 he founded the Tinkoff bank, in which he indirectly held the majority of shares, according to the US ministry. Listed in London, it raised $ 1.1 billion when it went public in 2013. Oleg Tinkov then raked in $ 192 million by selling part of his shares. Then he had started the process to renounce his citizenship. He then made a false tax return for 2013, citing income of only $ 205,317, while his assets were estimated at at least $ 1.1 billion.
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The fight against tax evasion is one of the priorities of the government of Joe Biden, which wants to use the funds collected to finance its major economic and social reforms.
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