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Report: Roblox founder Baszucki exploiting tax loophole

Report: Roblox founder Baszucki exploiting tax loophole

The founder of games platform Roblox, Dave Baszucki, has apparently been taking advantage of a small business tax break since 2004.

That's according to the New York Times, which reports that the exec has been using the Qualified Small Business Stock tax break since 2004. This incentive was introduced back in the 1990s to encourage investment in small businesses and allows startup investors to avoid taxation on $10 million in profits.

However, the New York Times reports that that Baszucki and many of his relatives have been using this loophole to increase the tax break by "at least 12 times." In other words, Baszucki, his wife, four children, mother in law and first cousin have avoided millions in taxes.

The Roblox founder is seemingly in good company, too, with the investors in the likes of Uber, Lyft and Airbnb also named as using this tax loop to avoid paying their fair share.

At the time of writing, Roblox's market cap sits at $55 billion, with Baszucki being worth around $7 billion.

Roblox declined to comment on the New York Times' story.


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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.