Taxation & Estate Planning

Tax Cheat Avoids Jail

By Darrin Mish

Juergen Homann, used his offshore account with UBS bank of Switzerland to deposit $6.1 million with the purpose of avoiding tax. For his crime, Homann, 67, was fined $60,000 and has to perform 300 hours of community service. The sentence was meted out by US district court judge Stanley Chesler. Homann?s sentence could have been a maximum prison term of 5 years. But he got off easy primarily due to his cooperation with federal investigators into UBS? involvement in helping wealthy Americans stash their money in offshore accounts to dodge taxes.

Homann was one of 6 UBS clients who confessed to tax avoidance last year. In his guilty plea, Homann admitted to failing to disclose his UBS bank account in his tax returns from 2001 to 2007 and not filing a Report of Foreign Banks and Financial Accounts (FBAR) for his offshore account. For this, he was fined $3.08 million and an undisclosed amount in back taxes, interest and penalties. On the other hand, UBS negotiated with the government for immunity against prosecution by paying a $780 million penalty and disclosing information on 250 suspected American tax evaders last year. Later in the year, UBS revealed data on another 4,450 account holders. Homann?s data was one of those disclosed.

Homann tried to avoid prosecution by confessing to the IRS but was told he was too late as they already had his information. Nonetheless, he made a full confession and offered to assist the Department of Justice in their investigations into UBS. His confession involved telling his story of what he did to transfer his money out of the US and into his UBS account. Initially in 1989, a Swiss banker and a lawyer helped him open a UBS account under the name of a bogus foundation based in Liechtenstein. Then in 2001, another Swiss banker introduced Homann to a Zurich lawyer named Matthias Rickenbach who helped Homann set up another bogus company, this time in Hong Kong named ELM Finance Ltd. He then got Homann to transfer his account to another bank in Singapore. Rickenbach himself has since been indicted together with another former UBS banker named Hansruedi Schumacher on August 20 last year.

Homann operates a mineral and chemical trading company called ACC Resources Co. that employs more than 100 people in offices in the US, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and China. As a result of his crime and guilty plea, his company?s credit standing was severely affected.

Darrin T. Mish is a veteran, nationally recognized tax attorney who has focused on providing IRS help to taxpayers for over a decade. He regularly travels the country training other attorneys, CPAs and enrolled agents on how to handle their toughest cases with the IRS. He is highly ranked among the top attorneys in the country, with an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell and a perfect 10 on Avvo.com. Martindale-Hubbell has also honored him with a listing in their Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers. He is a member of the American Society of IRS Problem Solvers and the Tax Freedom Institute. With clients on every continent but Antarctica, he has what it takes to solve your IRS problems no matter where you live in the world. If you would like more information about his practice and how he can help you, please call his office at (813) 229-7100 or toll free at 1-888-GET-MISH.

Tax Cheat Avoids Jail is a post from: IRS Tax Problem Solver Blog - IRS Help

Full post as published by IRS Problem Solver Blog on January 14, 2010 (boomark / email).