Friday, July 9, 2010

Pensionado faces 3 years in prison for failure to report offshore account

A 75-year old US citizen faces a 5-year prison sentence for failure to report an offshore account at UBS Switzerland held under the name of a Panamanian corporation with nominee directors. The alleged tax loss to the U.S. was about $60,000.

If only he had hired a lawyer to file the TD F 90-22.1 FBAR form....



Ex-UBS Client Zaltsberg Admits Hiding $2.6 Million
July 01, 2010, 12:44 PM EDT
By David Voreacos

July 1 (Bloomberg) -- A former UBS AG client who played soccer on the Soviet national team pleaded guilty to failing to tell U.S. tax authorities about $2.6 million held in an offshore account.

Leonid Zaltsberg, 75, admitted that he didn't declare to the Internal Revenue Service a nominee Panamanian account set up with the help of a UBS banker and a Swiss lawyer he didn't identify in federal court in Newark, New Jersey.

"Did you seek advice from UBS employees on how to keep your foreign bank account hidden from the IRS?" U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler asked Zaltsberg, who answered in the affirmative.
...

Soviet Athlete

Zaltsberg was a member of the Soviet Union's national soccer team in the 1960s and played in the World Cup, according to his daughter, Larisa Beyder, who attended the hearing. He came to the U.S. from Ukraine in 1989 and settled in Milltown, New Jersey, said his attorney, James DiPietro. Zaltsberg, who became a U.S. citizen, was a metals trader from 1990 to 2004, DiPietro said.

Zaltsberg, who is now an adviser to the Ukrainian national soccer team, suffers from bladder and prostate cancer, as well as depression, DiPietro said. He's also had open-heart surgery and four stents inserted, his daughter said.

Zaltsberg, speaking through an interpreter, admitted that he set up a UBS account in 1993, and that he set up the Panamanian corporation, Belton Capital Corp., in 2000. Zaltsberg said he created Belton to hide his assets from the IRS.

In pleading guilty to filing a false tax return in 2003, Zaltsberg also admitted that he failed to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or FBARs, from 2000 to 2007. He will pay $1.3 million, or a 50 percent FBAR on the highest amount of his account, DiPietro said. The tax loss to the U.S., the lawyer said, was about $60,000.

The case is United States of America v. Leonid Zaltsberg, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey (Newark). http://www.justice.gov/usao/nj/press/press/files/pdffiles/Zaltsberg,%20Leonid%20Information.pdf

--Editors: John Pickering

Full text in http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-01/ex-ubs-client-zaltsberg-admits-hiding-2-6-million.html

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