The Internal Revenue Service is seeking more...

The Internal Revenue Service is seeking more than $358 million in taxes from the Hunt family of Dallas in connection with writeoffs the family claimed during its ill-fated silver futures binge of 1979 and 1980. In a consolidation of eight cases against the Hunt family scheduled for trial in U.S. Tax Court beginning this morning, the IRS claims Nelson Bunker Hunt and his wife, Caroline, covered millions of dollars of their children’s losses when the silver market crashed in early 1980. The couple had written off the money as bad loans, but the government contends that the transfers constituted gifts to the Hunt children, rather than loans, and that the Hunts are subject to gift and income taxes on the amounts transferred.