- General
- October 3, 2021
- 5 minutes read
Russian Mogul Oleg Tinkov To Pay $500M+ For US Tax Fraud
Oleg Tinkov, a Russian billionaire businessman, will pay a $500mn+ penalty to settle tax fraud charges filed against him in…
Oleg Tinkov, a Russian billionaire businessman, will pay a $500mn+ penalty to settle tax fraud charges filed against him in the US. As part of the settlement, he pled guilty to filing a materially false tax return and agreed to pay the sizeable penalty.
- In March 2020, charges were filed against Tinkov by the US Justice Department (DOJ), alleging that he concealed over $1bn of taxable assets in 2013 when he renounced his US citizenship. In contrast, he was meant to pay due taxes on all his assets as part of the renunciation process.
- The $1bn+ of assets Tinkov allegedly concealed were shares of his Tinkoff Bank that he took public on the London Stock Exchange in 2013. In fact, he renounced his US citizenship just three days after the bank’s IPO that made the value of his shares worth over $1bn with sufficient liquidity.
- Tinkov was arrested in London last March and immediately posted a £20mn bail for his release in connection to the case.
A year and several months after he was charged, Tinkov has pled guilty and reached a settlement to apparently put the case behind him. He’ll pay no less than $507mn in a mix of taxes, interest, and penalties, according to a statement from the US DOJ.
Notably, Tinkov was liable to pay about $250mn in taxes had he not concealed the assets in 2013, the DOJ says, but now, he’ll have to pay double that and even more, although it’s noteworthy that his net worth has soared from the $1bn ball-park in 2013 to nearly $8bn now, per Forbes.
- Born in Russia, Tinkov immigrated to the US sometime and became a naturalized citizen in 1996. Afterward, he continued to launch business ventures in Russia, with his biggest venture being Tinkoff Bank, a purely digital bank that he launched in 2006. The bank was very successful and IPOed on the London Stock Exchange in 2013, minting Tinkov a billion-dollar fortune.
- Tinkoff Bank remains listed in London, with its market cap currently at £13.6bn ($18.4bn). Last year, there were talks for the bank to be bought by Russian tech giant Yandex, but the talks fell through.
