This FBAR case hit close to home. In fact, it hit home!
The Department of Justice proudly announced that it flushed out a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon hiding money in Dubai and got him sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison. Marc Edward Mani, 50, will serve jail time for failing to report income he earned in Dubai and failing to file an FBAR for his foreign bank account there. The good doctor had deposited into that account some of the nearly $1.3 million he earned while carrying out plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures in Dubai.
Dr. Mani pleaded guilty last year for failing to file an FBAR for the 2013 tax year. He also admitted failing to file it for 2012 and admitted he failed to report a significant portion of approximately $1.3 million in foreign income he earned in Dubai over a 3-year period. Dr. Mani began to travel to Dubai from California in 2011 to perform plastic surgery for a foreign medical center. He apparently disregarded the sage advice of his accountant, who was aware that Dr. Mani was earning foreign income. The accountant informed him that he would be required to report to the US authorities any foreign bank accounts under his control. Instead, of listening, Dr. Mani self-medicated. A big mistake!
Hopefully the stress of prison life will not cause Dr. Mani to become too wrinkled. If it does, however, I can hear the warden simply say, “Physician, heal thyself”.
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The announcement from the Department of Justice includes:
“United States citizens who have an interest in or authority over a financial account in a foreign country with assets over $10,000 are required to disclose and report the foreign financial account to the United States Department of Treasury for each year the financial account exists.”
This message is ambiguous. Although a true statement, I doubt that most Americans abroad with a bank/financial account in the country where they live would would consider that account to be foreign.
Also, I note that the FBAR violation is based on an account which was used to deposit income that was never reported to the IRS. We have a failure to report the account coupled with tax evasion. This means that this is about much more than a failure to report the bank account per se.
One wonders why this person received a jail sentence when some of his predecessors did not.
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Good information! Thank you.
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Oh what a tangled web we weave…
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