Tiësto‘s former lawyer, who has been jailed for fraud, is arguing that the DJ should be paying the IRS instead of him – find out more below.
Frank Butselaar, the former attorney of Dutch DJ and producer Tiësto is currently serving a 30-month prison sentence for fraud after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) discovered over $100million concealed in illegal offshore accounts.
According to Butselaar and his legal team, per Business Insider, the former attorney had concealed the sum in offshore accounts on behalf of his celebrity clients, who included Tiësto and other DJs like Afrojack.
Later this week, Butselaar will return to court over the $28million concealed in the account, which was supposed to be paid in taxes to the IRS over a period of six years. Butselaar argues that his was done at Tiësto’s request, although prosecutors in the case are not accusing the DJ of any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors believe Tiësto was unaware that the offshore accounts were illegal, and that he – through court documents – had “voluntarily” paid over nine million in taxes to the IRS.
On Thursday (March 13), Butselaar will face the court over the remaining $19million to be paid. In court documents dated March 3, prosecutors have claimed that they are willing to drop the restitution amount to $15million if Butselaar agrees to the sum and pays the IRS back without issue.
However, Business Insider reports that Butselaar and his team are arguing that the sum should be paid by Tiësto instead. In a statement to Business Insider, Butselaar said through a representative: “Mr. Butselaar was paid an hourly rate to help his clients. If anyone is held liable to pay taxes on the millions of dollars in income it should be the artists who earned it, not Mr. Butselaar.”
Back in November, Butselaar admitted to concealing $70million in earnings from the IRS on behalf of Afrojack using a similar network of off-shore accounts, per a MixMag report.
In other Tiësto news, the veteran Dutch DJ earlier this year teased a possible performance at Glastonbury 2025. However, the festival’s line-up was revealed last week, and confirms that the DJ has not been booked for the Worthy Farm festival.
