Settling a debt

GOP Mega-Donor Robert Mercer Part of Massive $7 Billion Tax Settlement With IRS

The settlement by executives at Renaissance Technologies might be the largest ever.

A new settlement with the Internal Revenue Service will require executives at Renaissance Technologies to pay “approximately $7 billion in back taxes, interest and penalties,” according to The Wall Street Journal. The settlement, which reportedly may be the largest ever of its kind, includes an additional $670 million contribution from James Simons, the billionaire founder of the quantitative hedge fund. Robert Mercer, a major backer of Donald Trump, is also a party in the deal. “We engaged for several years in the IRS Appeals process,” Renaissance’s CEO Peter Brown wrote in a letter obtained by the Journal. “Renaissance’s board eventually concluded that the interests of our investors from the relevant period would be best served by agreeing to this resolution.”