Wall Street analyst Joshua Rosner made a name for himself with prophetic warnings that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were ticking time bombs and that the U.S. housing market was heading for a collapse.
When the 2008 financial crisis hit, he became an ubiquitous presence on business news networks and a sought-after witness in Congress. He later co-wrote a best-selling book about the meltdown, which describes him on the back cover as an adviser to “global policy-makers and institutional investors.”
Yet as Rosner’s profile grew and, according to people familiar with the matter, he got work from prominent hedge funds like Paulson & Co. and Elliott Management Corp., he was having trouble managing his own finances.
For years, even as he made federal tax payments, Rosner failed to file his returns with the Internal Revenue Service. When he and his accountants finally sorted things out, they discovered he had overpaid hundreds of thousands of dollars. His request for refunds, however, was denied because he sought them too late.
Now, Rosner is suing the government to get the money back. And, he’s making a novel argument for somebody who earns a living as a financial expert, contending the Sept. 11 attacks rendered him “financially disabled.” He also asserts that the IRS has targeted him as retaliation for his public criticism of the Treasury Department’s $700 billion bank bailout a decade ago.
‘Personal Attacks’
The IRS has used “intimidation, harassment, extortive actions and personal attacks,” Rosner wrote in a court filing last year. He added that the “tactics placed me under extreme duress and compelled me to liquidate nearly all of my financial assets.”
The IRS, however, says Rosner couldn’t have run a business or held himself out as an expert if he were truly disabled. Rosner “authored sophisticated financial publications and gave testimony before congressional committees on financial matters, affirmatively demonstrating an absence of financial disability,” the agency’s lawyers wrote in a January 2018 motion.
Rosner, who is not a lawyer, is representing himself. The case could go to trial next year.
“It is bewildering that Bloomberg would write about deeply personal events that occurred in my life nine to 18 years ago,” Rosner, 52, said in a statement. “It has never been claimed that these events have harmed my ability to think or analyze, or have impacted my professional judgment.”