As the tax debate continues in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, an early BTC investor has been sentenced to two years in prison for tax fraud.
Frank Richard Ahlgren, a Texas investor who bought Bitcoin during Satoshi’s time, was sentenced to two years in prison for underreporting $3.7 million in earnings from selling Bitcoin from 2017 to 2019.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement that during rigorous checks, Frank Richard Ahlgren filed false tax returns between 2017 and 2019, underreporting or failing to report $4 million worth of Bitcoin sales from which he made significant profits.
In October 2017, Ahlgren sold approximately 640 Bitcoins for approximately $5,807.53 for a total of $3.7 million and used the proceeds to purchase a home in Park City, Utah.
When it came time to file his 2017 federal income tax return, Ahlgren reported that he had purchased the BTC he sold at much higher prices than they actually were in order to hide the full size of his Bitcoin gains.
Ahlgren also sold BTC in 2018 and 2019 but never reported these sales on his 2018 and 2019 tax returns.
The DOJ also stated that Ahlgren used mixers and wallet transfers to conceal funds, resulting in more than $1 million in tax losses.
At this point, the DOJ added that Ahlgren must pay $1.1 million in restitution to the U.S. government.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division said:
“Frank Ahlgren made millions of dollars buying and selling Bitcoin.
“But instead of paying the taxes he knew he was owed, he lied to his accountant about the size of a large portion of his earnings and attempted to conceal some more of his profits by using sophisticated techniques designed to disguise his transactions on the bitcoin blockchain. This behavior earned him a two-year prison sentence today.”
*This is not investment advice.