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Kevin O'Leary

Executive

ERC
Type
Person
Role
Executive
Programs
ERC
Updated

The profile

The "Shark Tank" investor whom Bottom Line Concepts' chief executive called one of its "brand ambassadors" for Employee Retention Credit filings. The two were partners in WonderTrust, a site for booking ERC claims that the Daily Mail, citing the Wall Street Journal, said had submitted $140 million in claims for more than 780 employers.

Identity and role

Kevin O'Leary is an investor and television personality known for the show "Shark Tank." Fox Business identified him in May 2025 as chairman of O'Leary Ventures.

Pandemic-relief role

O'Leary promoted the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) for Bottom Line Concepts, a firm that filed claims for a percentage of the refund. Its founder, Josh Fox, described the arrangement in a 2023 Leaders magazine interview: "we have these exceptionally famous brand ambassadors who have massive followings, like Kevin O'Leary who is working with us to get this critical message to his audience."

The vehicle was WonderTrust. Its website, in a copy archived in February 2025, said: "Powered by Bottom Line Concepts and Kevin O'Leary, WonderTrust is the expert you can Trust." It carried his line "I AM ON A MISSION TO EDUCATE EVERY COMPANY IN AMERICA ABOUT THIS PROGRAM BEFORE IT ENDS," the promise "WE DON'T GET PAID UNLESS YOU DO," and the footer "COPYRIGHT © 2023 Wondertrust by bottom line concepts."

The Daily Mail reported in September 2023, citing the Wall Street Journal, that O'Leary met with Bottom Line's team at least weekly and that WonderTrust had submitted $140 million in ERC claims for more than 780 employers. It quoted a video on his YouTube channel in which he sits beside Fox: "All my people teamed up with Bottom Line Concepts and said 'look, let's form a partnership and get the word out there.'" The paper said it had approached his representatives for comment.

A consumer's class-action complaint against Bottom Line, filed in Manhattan federal court, calls O'Leary "Bottom Line's best-known Referral Partner" and alleges that he and the company "are partners in a company called WonderTrust, an entity used for advertising and booking ERC calls with BLC." The same complaint describes the referral program's economics: Bottom Line's own graphic worked a $2,000,000 refund through a 25 percent fee ($500,000) and a 10 percent cut for the referring partner ($50,000).

After the program

O'Leary opposed the ERC audit provisions in the 2025 tax bill. In May 2025, as Congress drafted what became the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, he told Fox Business: "That program's over. They want to give new powers to the IRS to audit all those small businesses for up to nine years. That's unprecedented." He added: "And some people claimed it was fraudulent. Sure, there's fraud in every government program. But 95% of these businesses deserve that money and are still in business because of that money." The version signed on July 4, 2025 set the audit window for the affected ERC claims at six years, against the normal three, according to a Jackson Walker summary of the law.

In the federal dockets we searched, O'Leary and WonderTrust appear only in the allegations of Martin v. Bottom Line Concepts, where neither was a defendant. The court denied Bottom Line's motion to dismiss the phone-marketing claim on March 14, 2024, and the plaintiff dismissed the case two months later. We found no suit naming O'Leary or WonderTrust as a defendant over the ERC, and no government action against either.

Sources

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