The U.S. government has recently been increasing its efforts to combat tax evasion involving offshore bank accounts. Thus, being accused of hiding an offshore account from the IRS can have severe consequences for a U.S. taxpayer. A taxpayer can face serious penalties if he or she is convicted of committing this type of tax crime.
This can be seen in a recent tax evasion case from New Jersey. The case involves a 44-year-old businessman. The man was accused of hiding offshore accounts from the IRS.
The man allegedly held offshore accounts in India. The man supposedly failed to report these accounts from 2001 to 2010. This reportedly resulted in the IRS suffering a tax loss of thousands of dollars.
The man faced a fraud conspiracy charge in connection to these allegations. The man recently reached an agreement with prosecutors and pled guilty to this charge.
The man’s sentencing hearing will reportedly occur in July. The maximum prison sentence that can be given for the charge he pled guilty to is a five-year term. However, the plea agreement that was reached in this case discusses a 10 to 18 month prison sentence. It will be interesting to see if the judge in this case ultimately does decide on a sentence which falls within the range discussed in the plea agreement.
Any Miami criminal defense lawyer knows that the consequences of being convicted of hiding offshore accounts from the U.S. government can be severe. The impactful nature of tax evasion convictions can be seen in this case. Even if the judge in this case limits the man’s sentence to the range discussed in the plea deal, the man still could end up losing his freedom for a fair amount of time in connection to his alleged actions regarding offshore accounts. This clearly could have major effects on the man’s life.
Source: myCentralJersey, “Franklin businessman pleads guilty to conspiring to evade taxes,” (Article no longer available online) Ken Serrano, 11 Apr 2011
