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Reuters
- Billionaire investor Robert Smith is the subject of a federal investigation into possible tax crime, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing unnamed sources.
- Federal authorities have spent four years investigating whether he failed to pay taxes on $ 200 million in assets that were transferred through offshore entities, Bloomberg added, citing the sources.
- Smith is not charged with any crime, according to Bloomberg, who said he would be found not to owe taxes on assets, even without some sort of deal with prosecutors.
- The founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners hit headlines last year when he vowed to pay off the full-time student debt of 2019 at Morehouse College.
- Vista and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests from Business Insider for comment on the Bloomberg report.
- Visit the Business Insider website for more stories.
Robert Smith, the billionaire who made headlines last year after saying he would erase the student debt from Morehouse College’s entire graduate class in 2019, is sitting for an investigation into possible tax crimes, according to a Bloomberg report on Friday.
Bloomberg cited four unnamed sources, some of whom said the Department of Justice and IRS agents had been investigating him for the past four years.
Federal authorities are said to be investigating whether Smith – a billionaire tech investor and philanthropist who is the founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners – owes taxes on $ 200 million in assets that were transferred through offshore entities.
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A key factor in the investigation, Bloomberg reported, is whether Smith was the beneficial owner of Caribbean entities that received proceeds from Vista’s private equity fund.
Some of that revenue flowed through offshore entities into a U.S. charity founded by Smith, who is the founding director, the report said.
Neither Vista nor the Department of Justice responded immediately to requests from Business Insider for comment on the Bloomberg report.
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Smith is not charged with a crime, according to Bloomberg, who said the investigation may not charge him for the property, but also that one source said Smith sought flexibility in exchange for collaborating with multiple investigations.
Bloomberg said one of those investigations was directed at a Smith associate, Robert Brockman.
Brockman, a businessman from Houston, has a host of connections with Smith that involves offshore entities, trusts and foundations, Bloomberg said.
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