The United States Department of Justice has announced that an Anchorage, Alaska, plastic surgeon concealed bank accounts in Panama and Costa Rica from the IRS. His 48 month prison sentence stems from wire fraud and tax evasion. Highlights from the announcement offer the following details:
Dr. Michael D. Brandner, 67, was convicted by a federal jury in November 2015 of four counts of wire fraud and three counts of tax evasion. The charges arose from a scheme to conceal over $5 million of assets in secret bank accounts in Panama and Costa Rica from both the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Dr. Brandner’s wife.
According to the indictment and evidence introduced at trial, shortly after his wife filed for divorce in late 2007, Dr. Brandner collected millions of dollars in marital assets and secretly drove from Tacoma, Washington, to Costa Rica in Central America. In Costa Rica, he opened two bank accounts into which he deposited over $350,000 in cash and hid a thousand ounces of gold in a safe deposit box. He then traveled to Panama where he opened an account under the name of a sham corporation and deposited $4.6 million into the account in 2008.
Dr. Brandner concealed both the existence of the bank accounts and the interest income he earned on those accounts from the court in the divorce proceedings and from the IRS. Dr. Brandner owed the IRS $500,000 in additional taxes for the 2008 through the 2010 tax years. In 2011, Dr. Brandner repatriated over $4.6 million once the divorce was final only to have the funds seized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (ICE HSI) special agents. He then lied to federal agents about his control of the funds.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage ordered Dr. Brandner to serve two years of supervised release, and pay $25,922.95 toward the costs of prosecution.
The IRS will eventually catch up with those that evade paying taxes, there are no countries where it's safe to hide money from the U.S. government. An experienced Cleveland tax attorney can help you with proper FBAR (Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts) and if applicable, to make things right with the IRS and negotiate for smaller penalties for tax fraud cases.
