Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, has been charged with nine counts of tax evasion.
In an indictment handed down in California on Thursday, the 53-year-old Biden is accused of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019.
Special counsel David Weiss says Biden "spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills."
According to the indictment, Biden engaged in a four-year scheme in which he chose not to pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019 and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns.
As alleged in the indictment, to further this scheme, Biden:
• subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company by withdrawing millions outside of the payroll and tax withholding process
• spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills
• in 2018, stopped paying his outstanding and overdue taxes for tax year 2015
• willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes
• willfully failed to file his 2017 and 2018 tax returns, on time
• when he did finally file his 2018 returns, included false business deductions in order to reduce the very substantial tax liability he faced as of February 2020.
The charges come in spite of the fact that Biden has since paid his back taxes. They include one felony count of tax evasion, two felony counts of filing a false return, four misdemeanor counts of failure to pay and two misdemeanor counts of failure to file.
In response to the legal action, defense attorney Abbe Lowell accused Weiss of "bowing to Republican pressure," adding, "based on the facts and the law, if Hunter's last name was anything other than Biden, the charges... would not have been brought."
If convicted as charged, Biden faces a maximum of 17 years in prison.
The new charges filed Thursday are in addition to federal firearms charges in Delaware alleging Hunter Biden broke laws against drug users having guns in 2018.