A former Credit Suisse Group AG client was charged with a tax-evasion conspiracy in the U.S. as officials weigh whether the bank — now owned by UBS Group AG — breached a 2014 plea deal in which it paid $2.6 billion and admitted helping thousands of Americans evade taxes.

Gilda Rosenberg, a Florida businesswoman, conspired with two family members in hiding $90 million in assets from the Internal Revenue Service between 2010 and 2017, federal prosecutors charged Wednesday. She’s accused of acting to conceal money in undeclared foreign accounts while also filing false returns and evading taxes on unreported income. 

The extent to which Credit Suisse complied with its plea deal took on new focus after a 2023 Senate Finance Committee report said there were “major violations” of its agreement that requires the bank to identify undeclared U.S. accounts to the IRS. In the report, Democratic staff on the committee said the bank had still failed to fully disclose US assets despite having identified “thousands of previously undeclared accounts” valued at more than $1.3 billion. 

In response to the report, Credit Suisse said it was cooperating and had provided information to U.S. authorities on potentially undeclared accounts held by American clients.

A spokesman for UBS declined to comment Thursday on the case against Rosenberg. An attorney for Rosenberg declined to comment.   

Telling the IRS

The 2023 report doesn’t name the Rosenbergs but describes how the bank allegedly helped a family of dual citizens of the U.S. and Latin American country evade taxes. Whistleblowers told the committee the family members held nearly $100 million at Credit Suisse for a decade before transferring those assets to other banks without telling the IRS. 

The charge against Rosenberg doesn’t identify Credit Suisse, but refer to the same allegations described in the Senate report, according to people familiar with the matter. U.S. authorities are weighing whether the Swiss bank breached the terms of its 2014 deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal discussions.

UBS said in its third-quarter report that it had a provision for potential costs tied to inquiries into its cross-border wealth management services, including Credit Suisse’s compliance with the 2014 plea deal. It didn’t disclose an amount for the provision.

UBS could announce a settlement with prosecutors for violating terms of the 2014 deal as soon as this week, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The bank could agree to pay at least hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the report. The UBS spokesperson declined to comment on a possible settlement. 

Under its plea agreement with the U.S., Credit Suisse had to disclose all undeclared U.S. accounts closed and transferred from 2008 to 2014. Disclosing those account holders, known as “leaver lists,” was a U.S. requirement for Credit Suisse, several other Swiss banks that faced criminal charges, and 80 Swiss banks that made deals to avoid prosecution.

At the time of the report in 2023, Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who chairs the committee, slammed “greedy Swiss bankers” who appeared to be engaged in a “massive, ongoing conspiracy to help ultra-wealthy U.S. citizens to evade taxes.”

The report was released around the same time that Credit Suisse was being sold to rival UBS in a 3 billion franc ($3.3 billion) deal brokered by the Swiss government after years of scandal and mismanagement. 

‘Donate’ assets

Gilda Rosenberg was charged in a so-called criminal information. In a separate case last year, she pleaded guilty in Texas to conspiracy to commit wire fraud involving a Miami vending machine company she owns. She is scheduled to be sentenced on April 30. 

Rosenberg, a U.S. citizen, was born in Colombia and lives in south Florida, according to the tax charge. She conspired with two family members also born in Colombia, the U.S. alleges. They hid money in accounts in Switzerland, Spain, Israel and Andorra, prosecutors charged. 

Rosenberg and one relative agreed to sign documents purporting to “donate” assets in undeclared accounts to the other relative, the U.S. alleges. She also caused her return preparer to underreport income to the IRS and falsely say she had no interest in a foreign financial account, according to the charge.  

Since the bank’s 2014 guilty plea, other U.S. clients of Credit Suisse have been charged in tax cases. In 2016, Dan Horsky pleaded guilty to hiding more than $200 million in assets from the IRS. A Brazilian-American businessman, Dan Rotta, was indicted last year for allegedly using Credit Suisse, UBS and other Swiss banks to hide more than $20 million in assets from U.S. tax authorities over 35 years.

Due to extensive interest, Accounting Today has extended the deadline for submissions to its 2025 Top New Products report. Submissions, which were originally due Jan. 10, can now be made until the end of the day on Wednesday, Jan. 15.

The report will recognize the best new and significantly improved products aimed at tax and accounting professionals, as judged by the editors of Accounting Today.

Products for consideration must be designed for the tax and accounting profession; must have been released no earlier than January 2024; and must be currently available (i.e., not in beta testing) in the U.S. market.

Submissions must include:

• Release date;
• Pricing;
• A website URL and/or phone number for customer contact;
• 200 words or less describing the product’s functionality and its relevance to the tax and accounting profession; and
• A digital image or logo for the product, if available (images can be in JPG, EPS or TIFF format, at 300 dpi or higher).

We will accept up to three submissions per vendor, or three per major division of a vendor.

Submissions may be sent by email to our technology editor, Chris Gaetano, at [email protected],

On the record

Chicago: Attorney Michael Abramson, of Wilmette Illinois, has been convicted of tax fraud, attempting to tamper with a witness and violating a court order.

Abramson filed and caused to be filed false individual returns for himself and false corporate returns for a company in which he held an ownership interest, Illinois-based Leasing Employment Services Co. Inc.

Abramson also provided more than $1 million for personal expenses to a woman with whom he was romantically involved, then deducted what were falsely characterized as commissions or loans and included the fraudulent loans as an asset on the company’s returns. The expenses included money for a condo, luxury automobiles and travel, shopping and restaurants.

Following the indictment in this case, the court ordered Abramson not to contact witnesses, including his bookkeeper. Weeks before trial last February, Abramson gave the bookkeeper a copy of her previous court testimony on which he had handwritten notes changing or otherwise scripting her answers. The bookkeeper turned the transcript over to law enforcement.

Sentencing is May 1.

Mustang, Oklahoma: Education official Kim Weinrich has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and to making and subscribing a false return.

Between 2014 and April 2022, Weinrich was employed by Mustang Public Schools District as payroll supervisor and was promoted to director of payroll services in 2021. 

Beginning in 2016, Weinrich manipulated the district’s payroll accounting software to increase her net pay each period, depositing the stolen money into her personal bank account. Weinrich’s scheme also resulted in several district employees underreporting federal and state withholdings.

Between July 2016 and April 2022, Weinrich defrauded the district of some $471,657.91.

She also manipulated the payroll software to make it appear as if she’d paid substantial federal income taxes when she’d had no federal income taxes withheld. In April 2022, she filed a federal return reporting income of $91,295, substantially lower than her real income from the scheme.

She faces up to 23 years in prison and fines up to $350,000.

Newark, New Jersey: A federal court has held in contempt tax preparer Abraham Taylor, a resident of Florida and formerly of New Jersey, for continuing to prepare returns after the court permanently barred him and his business, Chentay Consulting Services LP (d.b.a. CCS Tax Services) from preparing federal income tax returns for others.

According to the court’s order, Taylor concealed his violations of the permanent injunction by using e-filing privileges assigned to Fredrick Gibson, of Uncle Sam Tax Services in Pennsylvania. Taylor agreed to the entry of the contempt order and a disgorgement judgment; Gibson agreed to forfeit his e-filing privileges.

Taylor was held in contempt in 2021 for using e-filing privileges assigned to his son O’Neal Taylor and his son’s business. Through the contempt order, Taylor agreed to a disgorgement judgment and O’Neal agreed to forfeit his e-filing privileges.

The most recent contempt order requires Taylor to provide the U.S. with a list of his clients and to send a copy of the court’s injunction order to all clients for whom he prepared returns. It also provides that the court can order the sale of Taylor’s house to satisfy the two disgorgement judgments if he continues to prepare returns.

Washington, D.C.: CPA Timothy Trifilo has pleaded guilty to making a false statement on a mortgage loan application and to failing to file an income tax return.

Trifilo worked in tax compliance for several large accounting and finance firms. In recent years, he was managing director at a tax firm where he specialized in transaction structuring and advisory service, tax compliance and tax due diligence.

For a decade, Trifilo did not file federal income tax returns or pay all his taxes despite earning more than $7.7 million during that time. He caused a tax loss to the IRS of $2,057,256.40.

In February 2023, Trifilo sought a $1.36 million bank-financed loan to purchase a home in the District of Columbia. After the mortgage company told him that the bank would not approve the loan without copies of his filed returns, Trifilo provided the mortgage company with fabricated documents to make it appear as if he had filed returns and provided copies of 2020 and 2021 returns that Trifilo in fact had never filed with the IRS.

On these returns and other documents, Trifilo listed a former colleague as the individual who prepared the returns and uploaded them for filing with the IRS. This individual did not prepare the returns, had never prepared returns for Trifilo and did not authorize Trifilo to use his name on the returns and other documents. Based on false representation, the bank approved the loan and Trifilo purchased the home.

Sentencing is May 19. Trifilo faces up to 30 years in prison on the charge of making a false statement on a loan application and a maximum of a year on the charge of failure to file a tax return. He also faces a period of supervised release, monetary penalties and restitution. 

San Diego: Business owner Wahead Raz has pleaded guilty to paying an IRS officer $35,000 to erase a six-figure tax debt.

On July 23, Raz offered the bribe to an IRS revenue officer during a meeting at the San Diego IRS office to discuss his outstanding tax debt of some $500,000. After the meeting, the IRS officer reported the bribe to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and agreed to be part of an undercover operation.

The next day, TIGTA video-recorded a meeting between the IRS officer and Raz during which Raz told the officer that he could pay in cash so the bribe would not be traceable. On July 25, the IRS officer recorded a call during which Raz said, “If you save me money, then I’ll take care of you,” and asked the officer to name a price. When the officer asked for $30,000, Raz countered with $20,000. After the IRS officer insisted on $30,000, Raz agreed, offering to pay $10,000 up front and the remaining $20,000 when the debt was cleared.

On July 30, TIGTA recorded a meeting between the IRS officer and Raz during which the latter provided the $10,000 cash and asked the officer to eliminate some $50,000 in tax debt owed by Raz’s business; Raz offered to pay the officer an additional $5,000 to have that debt cancelled.

On August 22, TIGTA recorded another meeting during which Raz gave the officer $15,000 in cash and told the officer he did not have the entire $25,000 originally agreed upon. On August 29, Raz paid $10,000 cash to complete the bribe. During two of the recorded meetings, Raz also offered to introduce to the officer other “clients” who also owed federal taxes and said he would introduce the agent once Raz’s tax debt was cleared.

Sentencing is March 19.