**["Bitcoin Jesus" Renounces U.S. Citizenship to Avoid Taxes, Faces Nearly $50 Million in Expatriation Tax Ten Years Later]** BlockBeats News, October 18: Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a deferred prosecution agreement with "Bitcoin Jesus" Roger Ver, under which charges of fraud and tax evasion against him would be dropped. In exchange, he is required to pay a penalty of up to $49.9 million. Roger Ver, one of the earliest Bitcoin evangelists, purchased a large amount of Bitcoin in 2011 at a cost of less than $3 million. In February 2014, in order to avoid high taxes, he acquired citizenship in the Caribbean nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis and renounced his U.S. citizenship the following month. At the time, he and his company collectively held at least 131,000 Bitcoins, valued at over $70 million based on the price of Bitcoin at that time. He initially believed that changing his citizenship would free him from the burden of high U.S. taxes. However, the stringent U.S. "expatriation tax" completely thwarted his plans. According to U.S. tax law, qualifying expatriates are required to treat their global assets as "sold on the day before expatriation" and pay capital gains tax accordingly. Ver declared and paid $1.03 million in taxes but failed to report his personal Bitcoin holdings and significantly underestimated his company's assets. Ten years later, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service uncovered his fraudulent tax evasion (fraudulent tax evasion is not subject to a statute of limitations), ultimately forcing him to pay up to $49.9 million in taxes, penalties, and interest. The actual amount recovered is 48 times the taxes he originally declared. [Original Link]