Bernhard Rumbold, Filing False Tax Return, Michigan 2017

A Michigan man has pleaded guilty to charges of filing a false tax return, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo, head of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade of the Eastern District of Michigan.

Bernhard Rumbold, a resident of Clarkston, Michigan, and owner of several mining-related businesses in Michigan and Ontario, Canada, pleaded guilty to filing a false amended 2008 individual income tax return.

According to the information and the plea agreement, in approximately November 2004, Rumbold transferred more than $2.6 million from his parents’ trust account, which he managed, into a bank account at Credit Suisse Bank AG in Switzerland. Rumbold arranged for the Credit Suisse bank account to be in the name of Wisdom City Limited, a Hong Kong company whose sole purpose was to be the named account holder on foreign bank accounts.

Rumbold, who was the beneficial owner of the account, transferred control of the account to a relative in December 2008.

On his 2006 through 2008 individual income tax returns, Rumbold falsely stated that he had no interest in a foreign financial account, and failed to report the interest, dividends and capital gains generated by the Swiss bank account as income. In October 2010, Rumbold signed and filed an amended 2008 individual income tax return in which he again failed to report the interest, dividends and capital gains generated by the Swiss bank account as income.

U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox for the Eastern District of Michigan scheduled Rumbold’s sentencing for Feb. 8, 2017. Rumbold faces a statutory maximum sentence of three years in prison as well as a period of supervised release and monetary penalties. The plea agreement requires Rumbold to pay restitution for his unpaid tax liabilities for the years 2006 through 2008.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ciraolo and U.S. Attorney McQuade commended the special agents of IRS-CI, who conducted the investigation, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ross MacKenzie and Trial Attorney Kenneth Vert of the Tax Division, who are prosecuting the case.

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