Adam Hochfelder is facing a new issue in New York, this time courtesy of the state tax department.
The former Nassau County developer was named New York’s top delinquent taxpayer with more than $48 million in unpaid personal income taxes, according to Newsday.
The onetime “Wharton Whiz Kid,” who once controlled a slice of Manhattan’s skyline, holds the dubious distinction of leading the state’s “Top 100” list of individual tax scofflaws.
The ranking, published periodically by the state Department of Taxation and Finance, highlights taxpayers with active warrants, the legal lever that allows authorities to seize property, withhold income and block big-ticket purchases, including real estate.
In a statement from Hochfelder’s counsel to The Real Deal, his lawyers disputed the underlying taxes allegedly owed to the state, claiming former partner Anthony Westreich issued him an improper K-1 tied to the sale of 1440 Broadway more than a decade ago.
“In 2013 when 1440 Broadway was sold, Mr. Westreich issued an erroneous K-1 to Mr. Hochfelder improperly allocating $50 million in profits to Hochfelder, nine years after Hochfelder had sold his interest in 1440 Broadway to Westreich in 2004,” the statement read. Hochfelder, per his lawyer, was only a 1 percent partner in the property after he sold his interest.
“Hochfelder’s counsel has been working with NY State to get Hochfelder’s 2013 tax allocation corrected.”
Hochfelder’s tax woes are the latest entry in a career defined by difficulties.
He was convicted in 2008 of duping family and friends into lending him $17 million, supposedly for resort investments and later served two years in prison after stealing another $2.5 million. In 2019, he pleaded guilty again to a misdemeanor charge stemming from the older fraud case.
He’s far from alone on the delinquent roll call. More than 20 Long Island taxpayers cracked the top 100 this summer; Nassau residents owed a combined $68 million.
Among them: restaurateur Zvi Yosef, who owes nearly $3 million tied to his shuttered kosher barbecue spot Chimichurri, and George and Tassos Strifas, operators of East Meadow’s Colony Diner, who also owe close to $3 million in sales tax and previously settled wage theft and harassment claims.
State officials frame the list as both a warning and an equalizer.
“This list is about transparency and fairness,” a Tax Department spokesman told Newsday, arguing that enforcement protects compliant taxpayers from being undercut by those who flout obligations. Still, the agency acknowledges the overall sums are small compared with Albany’s multibillion-dollar budget.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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