Wealthy California Tax Cheat Gets Off Easy
While Americans who’ve hidden assets in foreign banks and lied to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) about related interest income have been sentenced to substantial prison terms, an Orange County man who cheated the IRS is breathing a sigh of relief.
Elie Waknine grew up in Casablanca with ultra-wealthy Moroccan parents, inherited a fortune, immigrated to the U.S. in 1971, placed at least $4 million in a secret Israeli bank account and, while making millions of dollars in interest, spent years pretending he earned less than $3,000 annually.
According to the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, D.C., Waknine—once self-employed in the fashion industry—falsified his federal income tax returns for a whopping 21 years.
DOJ also ultimately tracked how the Huntington Beach resident shuffled money in coded accounts around Israel and then to Switzerland to France in hopes of illegally dodge reporting requirements.
Read more: https://ocweekly.com/irs-offshore-assets-tax-fraud/