Accounting
Epstein’s accountant: ‘I never saw anything improper’
In the decade-and-a-half that he worked for Jeffrey Epstein, accountant Richard Kahn never saw anything untoward — either in the child trafficker and sex offender’s financials, or in person.
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“In the years that I provided accounting and bookkeeping services for Jeffrey Epstein, I was not aware of the terrible and unforgivable things that he did to women and girls,” Kahn told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a nearly six-hour deposition on March 11 that was released last week. “My relationship with Epstein was strictly on a professional level. We did not interact socially, and I never attended any of his parties or his social functions.”
Kahn, who spent most of his tenure with Epstein tracking spending on the sex offender’s properties and other assets, and later looking after his investments and assets, said that he never saw any sexual abuse or trafficking himself, never saw Epstein in the company of a minor, and never received any complaints about Epstein’s behavior from victims or anyone else.
He was aware of Epstein’s 2006 plea deal on charges of soliciting sex with a minor, but believed Epstein’s claim that it was a one-time mistake that wouldn’t be repeated.
“Had I learned of any of his [ongoing] horrific behavior, I would have quit work immediately,” he told the committee.
A 10-minute interview
Kahn, who graduated from Syracuse University, started his accounting career at Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), before moving to Richard Eisner & Co. (a predecessor of Top 100 Firm EisnerAmper), and after that a small firm called KNHN.
He began working for Epstein in late 2005, after answering an ad and being contacted by a recruiter. His job interview with the then-little-known financier, he said, lasted all of 10 minutes.
Kahn described a relationship with Epstein that was conducted almost entirely via e-mail and phone calls, with a 30-90-minute meeting in person at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse only once every three weeks.
“Our conversations were 90% regarding questions I brought in looking to get answered regarding his accounting and financial situation,” he explained. “My role was reviewing checks from properties, bills that came in, dealing with property managers, dealing with his investments, dealing with insurance for himself and his employees.”
Kahn wasn’t the only accountant on Epstein’s team; another accountant, Bella Klein, “kept the QuickBooks files, paid bills, handled checks and credit cards and petty cash,” Kahn said.
There were also outside accountants who prepared Epstein’s tax returns, though Kahn worked on Epstein’s gift tax return.
“With homes in the Virgin Islands, New York, Palm Beach, Paris and New Mexico, and with several planes and a helicopter, Epstein had substantial yearly expenditures and a large staff,” he explained. “We tracked the expenditures as meticulously as possible, including gifts by Epstein to women and men. The gifts represent a very small fraction of Epstein’s spending. I did not see them as red flags for abuse or trafficking.”
Kahn testified that he has seen no evidence that Epstein was paid to traffick women or girls to any individuals, and when asked if any of Epstein’s income came from trafficking, he said, “No, not that I’m aware of. I walked through all his income here today, and I know where all of it was sourced from. … I have no reason to believe that any of his income was earned in an improper fashion.”
However, Kahn repeatedly reminded questioners on the committee that, due to the fragmented nature of his employer’s operations, he could not necessarily speak to all aspects of Epstein’s finances, or accurately describe the size of his estate at any given time before his death. As an example, Kahn noted that he began preparing liquid asset summaries for Epstein in 2014, but those specifically did not include all of the sex trafficker’s houses and real estate.
With the filing of an estate tax return after Epstein’s death, however, a clearer picture emerged: “When we filed his Form 706,” Kahn said, “he had somewhere between $550 and $600 million in assets.”
While acknowledging the complexity of Epstein’s finances, Kahn had a word of caution for those who believe that is a sign of ill-intent.
Stephanie Keith/Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Ge
“There’s a general misconception about Epstein’s operating financial entities and setting up LLCs and bank accounts,” he said. “I believe that setting up LLCs and bank accounts are the ABCs of financial planning for wealthy individuals like Epstein and others.”
“I had no role in setting up any of Epstein’s companies, but did not view them as improper or suspicious,” he told the committee.
Though it was not part of his regular duties, Kahn also did some work for Epstein’s imprisoned accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell — though not for long.
“I helped her organize her finances, sometimes during my work and sometimes after work,” he said. “I helped her organize her assets, her investments, her brokerage accounts, her cash, her insurances, her payroll, and I did that for a period of time. I was not paid by her, and I did not feel my work was appreciated, so I told Epstein that I no longer wanted to do work for Maxwell, and he said, ‘Great, don’t do work for Maxwell,’ and that was the end of my dealing with Maxwell.”
A new role
While Kahn wasn’t Epstein’s only accountant, he was named a co-executor of the estate after the sex offender’s mysterious death in prison in August 2019.
“That’s not a role that anyone would want,” Kahn told the committee. “Being co-executor has caused tremendous strife for me and my family. The anguish, anxiety and stress is unfathomable. My reputation has suffered what I believe to be irreparable damage that I don’t know if I ever will recover from.”
He took the role for a number of reasons, but the most important was that, “I thought that my knowledge of Epstein’s holdings would make me better prepared to alleviate some of the suffering of his victims.”
One of the first actions he and his co-executor — Epstein’s former lawyer, Darren Indyke — took was to establish the Epstein Victims Compensation Fund, with the goal of helping victims “in a discreet, kind and non-confrontational manner.”
Before being wound down, the fund resolved claims from 136 women, who were paid a total of $121 million — though many more claimants were deemed ineligible, according to Kahn, and he suspects the number of Epstein’s victims may total as many as 250 women.
Neither Kahn nor Indyke are paid for their roles as co-executors, but both are named as beneficiaries in Epstein’s will, for $25 million and $50 million, respectively — amounts Kahn said he believes were meant to compensate them for their work on the estate.
Whether those bequests will be made is an open question, given the estate’s condition.
“As of the last publicly filed quarterly accounting, the estate had approximately $120 million of assets,” Kahn reported. “Most recently, the estate settled a class-action lawsuit for $35 million, which leaves approximately $85 million. The estate still has, unfortunately, four to five remaining lawsuits, in addition to the fact that it is burning approximately $10-15 million a year in legal fees and other expenses.”
Both Kahn and Indyke also told the committee that they had received multimillion-dollar loans from Epstein while he was still alive.
Kahn’s loans totaled something like $3 million, and he stopped paying interest on them after Epstein’s death, with the expectation that the estate will forgive the loans.
“Epstein treated these loans for me and probably 10 other employees as retention bonuses,” Kahn said. “He was giving loans to us similar to the way that a brokerage firm would sign on and bring an individual in, they would give a loan to a new employee.”
Interestingly, both Kahn and Indyke said that no federal investigators had ever spoken to them.
“I’ve never been questioned by any government authority,” Kahn said.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board met this week to discuss its projects on accounting for transfers of cryptocurrency assets and enhancing the disclosures around certain digital assets, such as stablecoins.
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During Wednesday’s meeting, FASB’s board made certain tentative decisions, according to a
At a future meeting, the board plans to consider clarifying the derecognition guidance for crypto transfer arrangements to assess whether the control of a crypto asset has been transferred.
FASB also began deliberations on the
The board decided to provide illustrative examples in Topic 230, Statement of Cash Flows, to clarify whether certain digital assets such as stablecoins can meet the definition of cash equivalents. It also decided to include the following concepts in the illustrative examples:
- Interpretive explanations that link to the current cash equivalents definition;
- The amount and composition of reserve assets; and,
- The nature of qualifying on-demand, contractual cash redemption rights directly with the issuer.
FASB plans to clarify that an entity should consider compliance with relevant laws and regulations when it’s creating a policy concerning which assets that satisfy the Master Glossary definition of the term “cash equivalents“ will be treated as cash equivalents.
“I agree with the staff suggestion to look at examples,” said FASB vice chair Hillary Salo. “From my perspective, I think that is going to help level the playing field. People have been making reasonable judgments. I agree with that. And I think that this is really going to help show those goalposts or guardrails of what types of stablecoins would be in the scope of cash equivalents, and which ones would not be in the scope of cash equivalents. I certainly appreciate that approach, and I think it has the least potential impact of unintended consequences, because I do agree with my fellow board members that we shouldn’t be changing the definition of cash equivalents, and it’s a high bar to get into the cash equivalent definition.”
“I’m definitely supportive of not changing the definition of cash equivalents,” said FASB chair Richard Jones. “I believe that’s settled GAAP in a way, and we’re not really seeing a call to change it for broader issues. I am supportive of the example-based approach. The challenge with examples, though, is everybody’s going to want their exact pattern, but that’s not what we’re doing.”
The examples will explain the rationale for how digital assets such as stablecoins do or do not qualify as cash equivalents and give a roadmap for other types of digital assets with varying fact patterns to be able to apply.
“We really don’t want to be as a board facing a situation where something was a cash equivalent and then no longer is at a later date,” said Jones. “That’s not good for anyone, so keeping it as a high bar with certain rigid criteria, I think, is fine.”
Stablecoins are supposed to be pegged to fiat currencies such as U.S. dollars and thus provide more stability to investors. “In my view, while a stablecoin may meet the accounting definition established for cash equivalents, not every one of those stablecoins in the cash equivalent classification represents the same level of risk,” said FASB member Joyce Joseph.
She noted that the capital markets recognize the distinctions and have established a Stablecoin Stability Assessment Framework to evaluate a stablecoin’s ability to maintain its peg to a fiat currency. Such assessments look at the legal and regulatory framework associated with the stablecoin, and provide investors with information that could enable them to do forward-looking assessments about the stability of the stablecoin.
“However, for an investor to consider and utilize such information for a company analysis the financial statement disclosures would need to include information about the stablecoin itself,” Joseph added. “In outreach, the staff learned that investors supported classifying certain stablecoins as cash equivalents when transparent information is available about the entities at which the reserve assets are held. Therefore, in my view, taking all of this into consideration a relevant and informative company disclosure would include providing investors with the name of the stablecoin and the amount of the stablecoin that is classified as a cash equivalent, so investors can independently assess the liquidity risks more meaningfully and more comprehensively by utilizing broader information that is available in the capital markets and its emerging information.”
Such information could include the issuer, reserves, governance and management, she noted, so investors would get a more holistic look at the risks that holding the stablecoin would entail for a given company.
The board decided to require all entities to disclose the significant classes and related amounts of cash equivalents on an annual basis for each period that a statement of financial position is presented.
Entities should apply the amendments related to the classification of certain digital assets as cash equivalents on a modified prospective basis as of the beginning of the annual reporting period in the year of adoption.
FASB decided that entities should apply the amendments related to the disclosure of the significant classes and amounts of cash equivalents on a prospective basis as of the date of the most recent statement of financial position presented in the period of adoption.
The board will allow early adoption in both interim and annual reporting periods in which financial statements have not been issued or made available for issuance.
FASB also decided to permit entities to adopt the amendments to be illustrated in the examples related to the classification of certain digital assets as cash equivalents without the need to perform a preferability assessment as described in Topic 250, Accounting Changes and Error Corrections.
The board directed the staff to draft a proposed accounting standards update to be voted on by written ballot. The proposed update will have a 90-day comment period.
Senators introduced several pieces of tax-related legislation this week, including measures aimed at improving customer service at the Internal Revenue Service, cracking down on tax evasion and curbing the carried interest tax break, in addition to efforts in the House to repeal the Corporate Transparency Act.
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Senators Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, and Mark Warner, D-Virginia, teamed up on introducing a bipartisan bill, the
The bill would establish a dashboard to inform taxpayers of backlogs and wait times; expand electronic access to information and refunds; expand callback technology and online accounts; and inform individuals facing economic hardship about collection alternatives.
“Taxpayers deserve a simple, stress-free experience when dealing with the IRS,” Cassidy said in a statement Wednesday. “This bill makes the process quicker and easier for taxpayers to get the information they need.”
He also mentioned the bill during a
“I’m happy to meet with the team … and do all I can to make it as good as you want it to be,” said Bisignano.
“My bill would equip the IRS with the legislative mandate to create an online dashboard so that taxpayers can monitor average call wait time and budget time accordingly,” said Cassidy. He noted that the bill would allow a callback for taxpayers that might need to wait longer than five minutes to speak to a representative, and establish a program to identify and support taxpayers struggling to make ends meet by providing information about alternative payment methods, such as installments, partial payments and offers in compromise.
“I know people are kind of desperate and don’t know where to turn for cash, so I think this could really ease anxiety,” he added. “This legislation is bipartisan and is likely to pass this Congress.”
Cassidy and Warner
“Taxpayers shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get basic answers from the IRS — and in the last year, those challenges have only gotten worse,” Warner said in a statement. “I am glad to reintroduce this bipartisan legislation on Tax Day to ease some of this frustration by increasing clear communication and making IRS resources more readily available.”
Stop CHEATERS Act
Also on Tax Day, a group of Senate Democrats and an independent who usually caucuses with Democrats teamed up to introduce the Stop Corporations and High Earners from Avoiding Taxes and Enforce the Rules Strictly (Stop CHEATERS) Act.
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, joined with Senators Angus King, I-Maine, Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island. The bill would provide additional funding for the IRS to strengthen and expand tax collection services and systems and crack down on tax cheating by the wealthy.
“Wealthy tax cheats and scofflaw corporations are stealing billions and billions from the American people by refusing to pay what they legally owe, and far too many of them are getting a free pass because Republicans gutted the enforcement capacity of the IRS,” Wyden said in a statement. “A rich tax cheat who shelters mountains of cash among a web of shell companies and passthroughs is likelier to be struck by lightning than face an IRS audit, and Republicans want to keep it that way. This bill is about making sure the IRS has the resources it needs to go after wealthy tax cheats while improving customer service for the vast majority of American taxpayers who follow the law every year.”
Earlier this week. Wyden also
The Stop CHEATERS Act would provide the IRS with additional funding for tax enforcement focused upon high-income tax evasion, technology operations support, systems modernization, and taxpayer services like free tax-payer assistance.
“As Congress seeks ways to fund much-needed policy priorities and address our growing national debt, there is one common sense solution that should have unanimous bipartisan support: let’s enforce the tax laws already on the books,” said King in a statement. “Our legislation will make sure the IRS has the resources it needs to confront the gap between taxes owed and taxes paid – while ensuring that our tax enforcement professionals are focused on the high-income earners who account for the most tax evasion. This is a serious problem with an easy solution; let’s pass this legislation and make sure every American pays what they owe in taxes.”
Carried interest
Wyden, King and Whitehouse also teamed up on another bill Thursday to close the carried interest tax break for hedge fund managers that
Carried interest is a form of compensation received by a fund manager in exchange for investment management services, according to a
Under the bill, the
“Our tax code is rigged to favor ultra-wealthy investors who know how to game the system to dodge paying a fair share, and there is no better example of how it works in practice than the carried interest loophole,” Wyden said in a statement. “For several decades now we’ve had a tax system that rewards the accumulation of wealth by the rich while punishing middle-class wage earners, and the effect of that system has been the strangulation of prosperity and opportunity for everybody but the ultra-wealthy. There are a lot of problems to fix to restore fairness and common sense to our tax code, and closing the carried interest loophole is a great place to start.”
Repealing Corporate Transparency Act
The House Financial Services Committee is also planning to markup a bill next Tuesday that would fully repeal the Corporate Transparency Act, which has already been significantly
If enacted, the repeal would eliminate beneficial ownership reporting requirements, removing a transparency measure designed to help law enforcement and national security officials identify who is behind U.S. companies.
“This repeal would turn the United States back into one of the easiest places in the world to set up anonymous shell companies, something Congress worked for years to fix,” said Erica Hanichak, deputy director of the FACT Coalition, in a statement. “These entities are routinely used to facilitate corruption, financial crime, and abuse. Rolling back the CTA doesn’t just weaken transparency, it signals to bad actors around the world that the U.S. is once again open for illicit business.”
The Internal Revenue Service rarely penalizes taxpayers who have high balances in foreign bank accounts and fail to file the proper forms, according to a new report.
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The
Taxpayers with specified foreign financial assets that meet a certain dollar threshold are also required to report the information to the IRS by filing Form 8938. Failure to file the form can result in penalties of up to $60,000. However, TIGTA’s previous reports have demonstrated that the IRS rarely enforces these penalties.
The IRS created an Offshore Private Banking Campaign initiative to address tax noncompliance related to taxpayers’ failure to file Form 8938 and information reporting associated with offshore banking accounts, but it’s had limited success.
Even though the initiative identified hundreds of individual taxpayers with significant foreign bank account deposits who failed to file Forms 8938, the campaign only resulted in relatively few taxpayer examinations and a small number of nonfiling penalties. The campaign identified 405 taxpayers with significant foreign account balances who appeared to be noncompliant with their FATCA reporting requirements.
The IRS used two ways to address the 405 noncompliant taxpayers: referral for examinations and the issuance of letters to them.
- 164 taxpayers (who had an average unreported foreign account balance of $1.3 billion) were referred for possible examination, but only 12 of the 164 were examined, with five having $39.7 million in additional tax and $80,000 in penalties assessed.
- 241 noncompliant taxpayers (who had an average unreported account balance of $377 million) received a combination of 225 educational letters (requiring no response from the taxpayers) and 16 soft letters (requiring taxpayers to respond). None of the 241 taxpayers were assessed the initial $10,000 FATCA nonfiling penalty.
“While taxpayers can hold offshore banking accounts for a number of legitimate reasons, some taxpayers have also used them to hide income and evade taxes,” said the report.
Significant assets and income are factors considered by the IRS when assessing whether taxpayers intentionally evaded their tax responsibilities, the report noted. Given the large size of the average unreported foreign account balances, these taxpayers probably have higher levels of sophistication and an awareness of their obligation to comply with the law.
TIGTA believes the IRS needs to establish specific performance measures to determine the effectiveness of the FATCA program. “If the IRS does not plan to enforce the FATCA provisions even where obvious noncompliance is identified, it should at least quantify the enforcement impact of its efforts,” said the report. “This will ensure that IRS decision makers have the information they need to determine if the FATCA program is worth the investment and improves taxpayer compliance.
TIGTA made three recommendations in the report, including revising Campaign 896 processes to include assessing FATCA failure to file penalties; assessing the viability of using Form 1099 data to identify Form 8938 nonfilers; and implementing additional performance measures to give decision makers comprehensive information about the effectiveness of the FATCA program. The IRS disagreed with two of TIGTA’s recommendations and partially agreed with the remaining recommendation. IRS officials didn’t agree to assess penalties in Campaign 896 or with implementing performance measures to assess the effectiveness of the FATCA program.
“From our perspective, TIGTA’s conclusions regarding IRS Campaign 896 are based, in part, on a misguided premise and overgeneralizations, including the treatment of ‘potential noncompliance’ as tantamount to ‘egregious noncompliance’ that warrants a monetary penalty without contemplating the variety of justifications that may exempt a taxpayer from having to file Form 8938,” wrote Mabeline Baldwin, acting commissioner of the IRS’s Large Business and International Division, in response to the report.
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