Innocent Florida Man, a UBS Client, Pleads Guilty to Tax 'Fraud'; Whose Fuckin' Money is it Anyway?

A wealthy American client of UBS pleaded guilty on Thursday to tax fraud, the latest victory for the federal government in its crackdown on UBS and its offshore private banking accounts.

The client, Steven Michael Rubinstein, an accountant involved in the yacht industry, avoided an indictment by entering a guilty plea in Federal District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to a single information count of filing a false tax return in 2004 that did not disclose his offshore UBS accounts. As part of the deal, he agreed to cooperate with the government in its continuing investigation into scores of UBS clients over offshore tax evasion.

Mr. Rubinstein was the first American client of UBS’s offshore private banking services to be arrested, last April in Boca Raton, Fla., when he was charged with one criminal count of filing a false and fraudulent tax return that illegally did not disclose the existence of his UBS account. He later pleaded not guilty but reversed that plea on Thursday.

UBS, the world’s largest private bank, admitted in February to conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service by helping scores of wealthy Americans hide nearly $20 billion overseas.

The bank paid $780 million to settle the charges, but it remains under investigation, as do American clients prosecutors have pledged to pursue. The admission has helped to open the world of offshore banking and dealt a death blow to Swiss financial secrecy.

Mr. Rubinstein worked for an international company, most recently out of Coral Gables, Fla., that helped wealthy Americans buy, sell and build yachts. He waived indictment on Wednesday in agreeing before Federal Magistrate Judge Barry S. Seltzer, of Fort Lauderdale district court, to plead guilty to an information count, which he did on Thursday. He will be sentenced on Sept. 30 and was released on a $12 million bond.

His name was among 285 that UBS turned over in February as part of its settlement.

Robert Panoff, a lawyer in Miami for Mr. Rubinstein, did not immediately return calls requesting comment.

Prosecutors accused Mr. Rubinstein of keeping secret UBS private bank accounts through a British Virgin Islands corporation, roughly from 2001 through 2008. He used the accounts to, among other things, transfer $7 million back to the United States without paying taxes to purchase property and build a new mansion in Boca Raton.

He also sold more than $2 million in South African Krugerrands through his UBS accounts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/business/global/26tax.html?src=sch

Innocent Florida Man, a UBS Client, Pleads Guilty to Tax 'Fraud'; Whose Fuckin' Money is it Anyway?

Innocent Florida Man, a UBS Client, Pleads Guilty to Tax 'Fraud'; Whose Fuckin' Money is it Anyway?

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