Bank Leumi (Luxembourg) Client Pleads (2/3/15)

DOJ Tax has announced here that Dr. Baruch Fogel has pled to willful failure to file the FBAR.  Key excerpts:

According to court documents, Fogel, a U.S. citizen, maintained an undeclared bank account held in the name of a foreign corporation at the Luxembourg branch of Bank Leumi.  The undeclared foreign bank account and foreign corporation were set up with the assistance of David Kalai, a tax return preparer who owned United Revenue Service (URS).  In December 2014, David Kalai and his son, Nadav Kalai, were convicted in the Central District of California of conspiracy to defraud the United States for helping certain URS clients set up foreign corporations and undeclared bank accounts to evade U.S. income taxes and for willfully failing to file FBARS for an undeclared foreign account that they controlled. 

According to court documents and evidence introduced at the trial of David and Nadav Kalai, Fogel was a doctor who operated several managed health care businesses.  David Kalai suggested to Fogel that he could reduce his taxes by transferring money to a foreign bank account held in the name of a foreign corporation.  David Kalai advised Fogel to open up the bank account that was set up in the name of a British Virgin Islands corporation.  At a meeting facilitated and attended by David Kalai at the Beverly Hills branch of Bank Leumi, Fogel executed documents to open his Luxembourg bank account at Bank Leumi.  According to court documents, Fogel diverted at least $8 million to his undeclared bank account at Bank Leumi’s branch in Luxembourg.  

* * * * 

Fogel has agreed to pay a civil penalty in the amount of approximately $4.2 million to resolve his civil liability with the IRS for failing to file FBARs.  Fogel faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss to any person, whichever is greater.