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IRS to Broke Spanish Hipster: You Owe $172M

Esparza Bofill somehow racked up that bill in less than a year in NYC
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 25, 2010 2:10 PM CDT
IRS to Broke Spanish Hipster: You Owe $172M
Maybe Esparza Bofill never filed his taxes.   (Shutterstock)

The IRS says Marcos Esparza Bofill owes them $172 million in back taxes—which is pretty hard to believe, given that Esparza is a broke Spanish musician who recently had to borrow money from his relatives to pay his bills. The tax lien, which you can see on The Smoking Gun, springs from the brief stint Esparza spent trying to make a living as a daytrader in New York in 2006.

Esparza’s trades went poorly, and he left the city in less than a year. “He had a very modest apartment. I think he was in a room that all you could fit in was a bed,” a friend tells the New York Post. When he heard about the tax bill, “the first thing he said to me was, ‘What’s the IRS?’” Experts say Esparza probably just didn’t file a return. When traders fail to file, the IRS assumes all their trades were profitable. (More IRS stories.)

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