Robert Redford Sues New York over $1.6M Tax Tab for Selling Sundance Channel

Actor Robert Redford has filed a lawsuit against the state of New York for billing him $1.6 million in taxes related to the sale of the Sundance Channel, claiming he already paid taxes to the state of Utah.

Redford sold part of his share of the cable TV channel in 2005. New York State’s Department of Taxation and Finance claims he owes a total of $1,568,470 for that tax year, which includes $845,066 in unpaid taxes and $727,404 in interest. However, Redford sued, saying he already paid taxes in Utah, according to Courthouse News Service.

In his lawsuit, Redford is reportedly seeking “a declaratory ruling on a pure question of law concerning the constitutionality of imposing on plaintiff, a nonresident of the State of New York, a personal income tax on the gain derived from the sale of an ownership interest in a limited liability company.”

The lawsuit contends that since Redford’s ownership interest was in an S corporation, which is a pass-through entity, so he paid the taxes on his individual return in Utah and should not be subject to double taxation. The lawsuit argues that the entity operated from Utah and he had no property, payroll or receipts in New York.

Redford and his partners at NBCUniversal and CBS sold the rest of the Sundance Channel in 2008 to Cablevision’s Rainbow Media unit, which later spun off and became AMC Networks, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The channel, which was named after the Sundance Film Festival that Redford founded in Utah and his co-starring role in the 1969 Western, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," is now known as SundanceTV.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM ACCOUNTING TODAY