US News

Bernie Madoff owes $242.9 million in unpaid taxes

Bernie Madoff screwed Uncle Sam almost as badly as he did his clients.

During the fraud trial of five Madoff staffers accused of profiting off Madoff’s epic $65 billion Ponzi scheme, prosecutors revealed an IRS analysis showing that the 75-year-old mega-scammer, who is serving a 150-year federal-prison sentence, was a tax deadbeat to the tune of $242.9 million for the years 1993 through 2007.

He reported only $183.5 million in taxable income over the ­period when he should have listed $829.1 million, according to an analysis of Madoff’s federal tax filings and testimony by IRS agent Margo Dabnee.

For example, Madoff was found to have a federal “tax deficiency” of $28 million for 2000 by grossly under-reporting his taxable personal income as $37.7 million, according to Dabnee’s “summary of tax delinquency.”

In reality, his “corrected taxable income” for that year was a staggering $108.6 million, the chart showed.

The amount Madoff owed seemed so obscene that at one point, Assistant US Attorney Randall Jackson, while questioning Dabnee’s calculation of $242.9 million, asked, “Just to be clear, we’re talking about millions of dollars, right?”

In 2010, Madoff ranked No. 68 on New York state’s list of Top 250 tax deadbeats, then owing $984,000 in back state taxes. He is not on the most current list, which was updated this month, but his brother, Peter, is listed at No. 50, owing $1.5 million.

Dabnee also told jurors that three of the five staffers on trial were also tax delinquents — on a much smaller level.

She said ex-Madoff operations chief Daniel Bonventre had owed slightly more than $2 million off federal filings for 1992-2008, ex-secretary Annette Bongiorno was delinquent $239,334 for 1994-2008, and ex-accounts supervisor Joann Crupi owed $38,041 in taxes for 2004, 2007 and 2008.

Another government witness, FBI agent Mollie Brewster, gave jurors vivid details of how Bonventre got a fortune being a trusted Madoff staffer.

She said Bonventre got more than $3.5 million in “unreported income” from perks from 1992 to 2008. This included $228,000 from Madoff for Bonventre and his family to be members of the ritzy Richmond County Country Club on Staten Island, $933,088 to settle his three Amex cards, and $197,016 so Bonventre’s son could to attend the exclusive Dalton School in Manhattan.

The perks were part of $15.3 million she said Bonventre made off of Madoff from 1992 until the company was shut in 2008.

Bonventre earned a $8.9 million salary over the period and also cashed $2.7 million out of Madoff Securities’ crooked investment-advisement account.