Home / Poker News December 2013 / 2013 Poker Retrospective – Part 8
2013 Poker Retrospective – Part 8
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2013-12-29 09:23
This part of our 2013 retrospective may as well bear the sub-title “more champs in the pickle” as it’s the second part of a mini-series in which we take a look back at some of the former
WSOP Main Event winners who had trouble with the law in 2013. Having discussed Greg Raymer’s prostitution-related problems in our last piece, it is now time to take a look at Jerry Yang, who had a number of his personal items seized by the IRS – among them his Big Dance bracelet.
Apparently, the 2007 winner of the Main Event - and as such, the beneficiary of a $8.25 million prize - forgot to pay some of the taxes he owed to the state, and thusly, the IRS made the above said move for “nonpayment of internal revenue taxes due from the taxpayer”. Yang had apparently fallen some $571.89k short when it came to dealing with the taxes stemming from his massive win. Back then, obviously everyone thought he had already spent all his money and was broke, but there was more to the story.
Yang later sat down with an interviewer and he shed some light on the matter. He said he had paid some $900k in taxes, but he had hired the wrong people to advise him in the issue, and he ended up making some big mistakes, compounded by the fact that in April 2008 he was supposed to pay his federal taxes too, and he had stashed all his money in the financial-crisis-stricken BofA. With the money essentially frozen in his account, he found himself unable to fulfill his legal obligations. The penalties on the delay kept mounting, so in the end he ended up with more than $500k owed.
He also said he had helped out a lot of people and had generally not been particularly smart with his 2007 Main Event winnings.
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