NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sotheby’s was sued on Friday by New York’s attorney general, who accused the auction house of defaming the state by helping a key client avoid millions of dollars in sales tax on purchased art.
Attorney General Letia James said Sotheby’s helped the client, a contemporary art collector, introduce himself as an art dealer instead of a collector to obtain false tax-exempt certificates.
James said this enabled the client, who is in the shipping business and lives out of the country, to avoid sales tax on personal art purchases between 2010 and 2010, including his Manhattan apartment partitions, between 2010 and 2010. .
The complaint states that although Sotheby’s accepted four wholesale sales certificates, the purchase was for personal use despite “overwhelming” evidence, while senior Sotheby’s employees visited the apartment apartment “to admire his artwork on the walls.”
In a statement, Sotheby’s said he “vehemently denies the baseless allegations made by the attorney general, which are not supported by both fact and law.”
The lawsuit was filed in a state court in Manhattan, New York, and is seeking civil penalties in addition to compensation for violations of the state’s False Claims Act.
It was filed two years after a consumer company, Porsal Equities, reached a 10.75 million settlement to settle state allegations about the use of resale certificates.
“Billionaires and billionaires cannot be allowed to avoid taxes,” James said in a statement. “Sotheby’s broke the law and millions of New York taxpayers escaped.”
Reported by Jonathan Stampel in New York; Edited by Bill Burkerot and Rosalba O’Brien
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