Billionaire Robert Smith avoided prosecution after co-operating with prosecutors in largest ever tax evasion case

A billionaire businessman who praised the Trump administration’s efforts to help minority business owners and cleared black students’ debt was reportedly spared prosecution for tax evasion in a deal to co-operate on another massive tax case. 

Robert Smith, America’s wealthiest black businessman, made headlines when he pledged to pay the student debt for students graduating from Morehouse College, an all-male historically black college in Atlanta, in 2019.

Mr Smith, who runs a private equity firm and is estimated to be worth $7 billion, was also a vocal advocate of the Trump administration’s financial relief efforts for minority business owners during the pandemic and spoke regularly with the former president’s daughter Ivanka Trump.

But according to Bloomberg, at the same time, Mr Smith was being investigated by prosecutors and the US taxman who believed he had failed to declare more than $200 million in income.  

According to the outlet, Donald Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, signed off on a non-prosecution agreement which allowed him to avoid a potential jail term and losing control of his company Vista Equity Partners.

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