Top Financier’s Tax Trial Opens

MIAMI — Miami Beach financier Victor Posner, ranked as the nation’s highest-paid executive last year with a salary of more than $12 million, went on trial today on charges of not paying $1.2 million in federal income taxes between 1976 and 1979.

Posner pleaded innocent in 1982 to a 10-count indictment issued in New York City. He is accused of conspiring with a real estate appraiser to inflate the value of 16 acres of land he donated to Miami Christian College so he could report a larger charitable tax deduction than he was entitled to claim.