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# Sotheby's to pay New York State $6.25 million to settle tax fraud suit brought by Attorney General Letitia James
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/sothebys-vyplatit-6-25-milliona-dollarov-shtatu-niu-iork-dlia-razresheniia-iska-o-nalogovom-moshennichestve-podannogo-generalnym-prokurorom-letitsiei-dzheims/
- Published: 2024-11-15T17:30:57.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:32:07.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, New York, Society

Sotheby's will pay New York State $6.25 million to settle a tax fraud suit brought by Attorney General Letitia James. The suit accused the auction house of helping its clients to evade taxes.

Attorney General James alleges that the investigation uncovered, among other things, a scheme that allowed one of Sotheby's clients to acquire works of art worth $27 million for his private collection by improperly using a so-called resale certificate. According to the Attorney General, Sotheby's accepted from the collector a certificate conferring tax relief, although it knew that the purchase was destined for a private collection. Sotheby's staff even helped to install the works in the collector's home.

On at least 8 occasions between 2010 and 2020, the auction house helped its clients to evade taxes in this manner.

"Sotheby's deliberately broke the law to help its clients evade millions of dollars in taxes, and now they must pay for it," declared Attorney General Letitia James.

In addition to the $6.25 million fine, the auction house is obliged to carry out reforms, including a revised policy on the use of resale certificates.

Of late Sotheby's has come under particularly close scrutiny from the tax authorities owing to the acquisition of the auction house by the Israeli television magnate Patrick Drahi, who bought it in 2019 for $3.7 billion