$100M Tax Fugitive Turns Up in Caymans

Tycoon started massive Computerland retail chain
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 10, 2011 4:55 PM CDT
Tech Mogul, Tax Fugitive Found in Cayman Islands
William H. Millard founded ComputerLand and is said to have amassed as much as $1 billion.   (Wikipedia)

A charming entrepreneur may have to give up his globe-trotting ways and pay an outstanding $100 million tax bill, the Wall Street Journal reports. Investigators have tracked down William H. Millard, the California tech mogul who founded the once-massive computer retailing chain ComputerLand, in the Grand Cayman Islands. Authorities of another island group say he owes them for time spent on the Pacific island of Saipan, where he enjoyed a stunning 95% tax rebate.

An est devotee who once sought to end world hunger, Millard gave up control of ComputerLand in a management clash in 1986 and moved to Saipan, on the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. After island authorities tightened their tax policy, Millard left in 1990—and the commonwealth hired investigators to track him down for unpaid taxes, saying he never qualified for tax breaks. Now a law firm is combing through his international holdings. But Millard's lawyer says he just received the tax bill, and called accusations of tax-dodging "ludicrous and insulting." (More tax evasion stories.)

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