Paris, 6 February 2012, Art Media Agency (AMA).
Guy Wildenstein, art dealer and heir of famous collector Daniel Wildenstein, owes €250 million to the French tax department.
According to Le Point, Artclair explains that Daniel Wildenstein did not declare all his income to the tax office in the 90s. Consequently, his son, Guy Wildenstein, businessman and art dealer, has to face tax adjustment. While the tax department is asking for €250 million, the Wildenstein family, whose wealth has an estimated value of €4 billion, questions the adjustment.
This adds a new twist to the Guy Wildenstein case as he has already been sued for tax evasion by the Budget Department in October 2011, and for abuse of trust by Sylvia Roth, widow of Daniel Wildenstein who passed away in November 2010. Roth accuses Daniel Wildenstein’s heirs — Guy and his older brother Alec (passed away in 2008) — of hiding the patrimony in tax havens, to escape from the French tax department during Daniel Wildenstein’s inheritance.
While a search occurred in the Wildenstein Institute in November 2011, to check whether the tax evasion was true, the police had found artworks declared as stolen or missing by Rouart’s heirs and Joseph Reinach’s descendants, in a vault. The Wildenstein Institute, research centre in art history founded by Daniel Wildenstein and his sister Miriam Pereire in 1970, has been accused of concealment of artworks since February 2011. Besides, Guy Wildenstein has also been put under investigation for abuse of trust.