Thanks to the presidential pardon from his father, Hunter Biden will no longer have to worry about the federal charges he was facing for failure to pay federal income tax on millions of dollars in earnings. President Joe Biden’s December 1 pardon does not, however, immunize his son from prosecution for failure to pay state income tax. Whether or not Hunter Biden fulfilled his state tax obligations to California is a question now being pursued by a public whistleblower.

Hunter Biden was a resident of California, home to the highest top marginal income tax rate in the country at 13.3%, during the years for which he has pled guilty to federal tax evasion. While media coverage has focused on unmet obligations to the IRS, the prospect of unpaid state tax liabilities is a topic that has never received much attention. In early December, James Lacy, president of the United States Justice Foundation, filed a public complaint (Case Number 12024-14638) with the California State Auditor calling for an investigation of the California Franchise Tax Board in order to determine whether Hunter Biden filed and paid state taxes for the years he has pled guilty to federal tax evasion.

Given the amount of income on which Hunter Biden failed to pay federal taxes, it’s a potentially large sum of money that he also might have neglected to pay to the government of California, a Democrat-run state where taxpayers are on the hook for an estimated trillion dollars-worth of unfunded public pension liabilities and where employers were recently hit with a payroll tax hike triggered by Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D-Calif.) decision to not repay unemployment insurance loans taken out from the federal government during the pandemic.

“Californians who file their tax returns and timely pay their taxes deserve to know whether or not Hunter Biden has received any special treatment from the Franchise Tax Board regarding his tax liability,” said Lacy. “I am hoping my Whistleblower Complaint will draw attention to this issue and bring some transparency to whether our state tax system has acted fairly.”

“If Hunter Biden failed to pay federal taxes, it’s reasonable to suspect he also failed to pay applicable state income taxes for those years,” says Ryan Ellis, an IRS-enrolled agent. Lacy also called on the Governor to act, saying “Newsom should also reveal to California taxpayers whether or not Hunter Biden was secretly ‘pardoned’ from state tax liability and enforcement as well.”

California Combines High Tax Rates With Muscular Collection

Aside from the nation’s highest state income tax rate, California has long been considered the most aggressive state in the nation when it comes to taxing foreign-sourced income. “Unfortunately for the President’s son, not only did he face the highest state income tax rate, he was also dealing with a state whose tax law has the longest and most aggressive arm,” Ellis said. “Comparatively speaking, California is the most litigious state I have seen in terms of chasing people down for money. Only New York rivals them.”

“It doesn’t matter if the income was coming from the former Mayor of Moscow, a Chinese private equity firm, or a Ukrainian gas company, California tax obligations are global and would’ve applied for the years in which Hunter Biden was a Golden State resident,” added Ellis, who runs his own tax preparation business and is president of the Center for a Free Economy.

The Department of Justice noted in a September 5 press release that “Hunter Biden engaged in a four-year scheme in which he chose not to pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019 and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns.” While Hunter Biden won’t face repercussions for skipping out on those federal tax obligations thanks to the pardon from his father, that doesn’t shield him from state level prosecution for failure to pay taxes to California.

Why would a person pay state taxes on income for which it’s known they did not pay federal taxes owed? That question and the desire to answer it is behind the complaint recently filed with the State Auditor. Fortunately for Hunter Biden, California tax authorities and the California press corps have thus far demonstrated little interest in answering that question.

Hunter Biden also doesn’t have to worry about the most recent state wealth tax proposal introduced Sacramento. That’s because Governor Newsom confirmed earlier this year that he opposes the latest wealth tax bill introduced by California legislators. That should be welcomed news for Hunter Biden, who purchased a $142,000 sports car with funds provided by a Kazakh businessman, and who received a 3.16 carat diamond from a Chinese businessman, both of which would be prime targets of the sort of wealth tax sought by some California lawmakers.

In his 2023 State of the Union Address, President Biden promoted his effort to make “the wealthiest and the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share. That message was echoed throughout 2024 by Vice President Kamala Harris (D), Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and other prominent Democrats. Any politician who wants to continue calling for stricter gun control and higher tax burdens on the rich, however, will have a hard time doing so in the future if they declined to comment when the President’s son was let off the hook for failing to pay taxes on millions in income and violating of gun laws.