Boca man first UBS client to be charged with tax evasion

By Palm Beach Business.com

FORT LAUDERDALE — Federal authorities have charged a Boca Raton man with filing a false tax return hiding income and assets through accounts at Switzerland-based UBS. It’s the first prosecution stemming from an agreement between U.S. authorities and UBS to disclose U.S. account holders who allegedly are using Swiss accounts to illegally evade taxes.

“Today is the first of the prosecutions resulting from that disclosure, but it will not be the last,” U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said. “It is our duty to those who pay their legal share of taxes to ensure that others do not use offshore schemes to evade payment of their taxes."

The Boca man, Steven Michael Rubinstein, was being held pending a bond hearing on Tuesday.

According to court records, Rubinstein is a chartered accountant who works for an international company that helps clients to build, buy, and sell yachts. On April 9, 2008, Rubinstein filed a 1040 for tax year 2007 that failed to statet that Rubinstein had an interest in an account at UBS in Switzerland. Additionally, Rubinstein failed to report the income he earned on any UBS Swiss bank accounts.

Court records also said Rubinstein was the beneficial owner of UBS accounts in the name of Hybridge International Ltd., a British Virgin Island corporation. From 2001 through 2008, Rubinstein allegedly communicated with bankers at UBS about buying and selling securities worth more than 4.5 million Swiss francs, converting investments from U.S. dollars to British pounds, depositing and transferring funds into and out of the UBS Swiss accounts, and repatriating about $3 million into the U.S. to build a home in Boca Raton.

Additionally, it is alleged that Rubinstein deposited and sold more than $2 million in South African Krugerrands through his UBS Swiss bank accounts.

In February, UBS admitted to helping U.S. taxpayers hide accounts from the IRS. As part of the agreement, UBS agreed to provide the identities of, and account information for some U.S. customers.