Michael Saylor Paid No Taxes in 10+ Years: DC Attorney General

Karl Racine, Washington DC Attorney General, tweeted on Wednesday, August 31st, that his office is suing Michael Saylor for evading to pay taxes on profits he achieved while living in the District. The announcement explicitly states that the accusation is tax fraud.

Saylor Allegedly Failed to Pay Any Income Taxes on “Hundreds of Millions of Dollars He’s Earned”

Attorney General Racine announced that he is suing Michael Saylor, the founder and former CEO of MicroStrategy. According to the announcement, Saylor failed to pay any income taxes over more than a decade living in D.C.

According to Racine, this is the first lawsuit filed under DC’s recently amended False Claims Act. Saylor’s company is also getting sued “for conspiring to help him evade taxes he legally owes on hundreds of millions of dollars he’s earned while living in DC.”

The Attorney General also added that “with this lawsuit, we’re putting residents and employers on notice that if you enjoy all the benefits of living in our great city while refusing to pay your fair share in taxes, we will hold you accountable.”

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The Case Against Saylor Explained

The complaint filed against Saylor sheds more light on the alleged tax evasion scheme. Attorney General Racine and his team reconstructed Saylor’s comings and goings to and from the District of Columbia using various social and traditional media posts, testimonies of the billionaire’s inner circle, and records on flights of MicroStrategy’s jet.

For some individuals, it would be difficult to reconstruct their past day-to-day locations and establish that they spent the majority of their time in the District. Saylor, on the other hand, left a trail of information to reconstruct his movements to and from the District. This trail includes, among other things: location-specific social media posts; local newspaper articles chronicling parties he hosted in the District; witness accounts from Saylor’s inner circle; and Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) flight information for his company’s private jet, each showing exactly when he left the District and when he returned. Thus Saylor’s scheme was exposed for the world, and this Court, to see.

The document also explains that Saylor used his vacation home in Florida, combined with a more elaborate scheme that included getting a Florida driver’s license and registering several vehicles in that state as proof that he was in fact not a DC resident. Florida was chosen as it doesn’t levy an income tax on its residents.

Despite Saylor’s company, MicroStrategy, suffering heavy losses throughout 2022, the news of the lawsuit didn’t have an immediate negative effect on its shares. Following the news, the stocks suffered some instability but closed the day at $231.32. This means they recovered a bit from the day’s low of $224.06 which was reached just before the suit was announced.

Do you think that the lawsuit will ultimately have a major negative impact on MicroStrategy’s shares? Let us know in the comments below.