Email provided to FBI alleges Hunter Biden hadn't paid taxes on some Burisma payments

Four days before Donald Trump assumed the presidency, a business colleague warned Hunter Biden he had not paid taxes on approximately $400,000 that he had been paid by a Ukrainian gas firm in 2014 and that he needed to file an amended tax return, according to an email provided to the FBI.

The email was first located on a laptop Hunter Biden purportedly left behind at a Delaware repair shop and that was subsequently surrendered to the FBI under a grand jury subpoena in 2019, according to two sources directly familiar with what was provided to the government.

Senate investigators have also become aware of the email, and have tried to track down its author to discuss its references to Burisma Holdings and other transactions described in the document as "phantom income."

The email purports to recount a conversation between Hunter Biden and an executive at the Biden-connected firm Rosemont Seneca Advisers in January 2017 that outlined income and tax liabilities for the former vice president's son between 2014 and 2016.

It specifically flagged income Hunter Biden was believed to have received from the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma Holdings starting in 2014, when the younger Biden was added to the company's board while it was facing corruption allegations and while his father Joe Biden took over U.S.-Ukraine policy.

"In 2014 you joined the Burisma Board and we still need to amend your 2014 returns to reflect the unreported Burisma income," Rosemont Seneca executive Eric Schwerin is quoted as writing Hunter Biden in the Jan. 16, 2017 email. "That is approximately $400,000 extra so your income in 2014 was close to $1,247,328."

Joe Biden's presidential transition office on Wednesday revealed that Hunter Biden is the focus of a criminal investigation into his "tax affairs" by the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware. Hunter Biden issued a statement through the transition office saying he was cooperating and confident he and his accountant handled his taxes appropriately.