Tuesday, March 15, 2011

UBS Client in San Diego Gets Probation for Hiding Accounts

From Businessweek.com:

A UBS AG client in San Diego was sentenced to three years probation after pleading guilty to hiding assets in his Swiss bank accounts from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Jeffrey Chatfield, a consultant who advised private companies that sought to go public, was also ordered to pay $96,000 to resolve his civil liability with the IRS, the U.S. Justice Department said today in a statement.

Chatfield filed false tax returns from 2000 through 2008 in which he failed to disclose his Bahamian and Swiss accounts at UBS and Credit Suisse Group AG, according to the Justice Department’s statement. The accounts held as much as $900,000 in untaxed securities and cash Chatfield received in 2000 from his consulting work, according to the statement.

UBS provided U.S. officials with Chatfield’s identity and account information as part of a deferred prosecution agreement under which the Zurich-based bank admitted helping U.S. taxpayers hide accounts from the IRS, the Justice Department said. Chatfield had moved his assets to a Credit Suisse Group AG account in 2004 and that bank told him in 2008 it was closing all accounts held by U.S. taxpayers, according to the statement.

Continued here