Jarrett D. Mitchem, Tax Evasion, North Carolina 2023

A North Carolina man, Jarrett D. Mitchem, 66, of Hendersonville, was sentenced to 9 months in prison for tax evasion. Mitchem was also ordered to serve 2 years under court supervision after he is released from prison, plus an additional 3 months of home confinement. The court ordered that he pay $151,089 as restitution to the Department of Treasury.

U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose announced the sentence, joined by Thomas J. Holloman III, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI). The investigation was handled by IRS-CI, and the case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Don Gast of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville.

Mitchem was found to have hidden money in secret offshore accounts and failed to report the income generated from those accounts. He was identified through a deferred prosecution agreement with the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in February 2009. As part of the agreement, UBS provided the government with the identities of and account information for persons who likely had engaged in actions designed to evade United States income tax liabilities.

Court records show that Mitchem opened a Swiss bank account at UBS in November 1995 and transferred approximately $4 million he inherited from his parents to the account in 2005. In May 2011, an IRS revenue agent contacted Mitchem regarding the UBS accounts, and he initially withheld some information but agreed to provide the UBS bank records after being confronted by the IRS agent.

Mitchem only provided bank records for his parents’ UBS account and not his personal UBS account. In November 2011, he filed his federal tax return forms for tax years 2004 through 2007, in which he failed to claim capital gains and substantial interest income from money held in his UBS bank account. Mitchem admitted in court and in filed documents that he knew his earnings should have been claimed and that he willfully omitted reporting them to avoid the payment of additional income tax.

The investigation was handled by IRS-CI, and the case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Don Gast of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville. Mitchem will be ordered to report to the Federal Bureau of Prison upon designation of a federal facility. All federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.

The court records show that the tax loss associated with the unclaimed income from Mitchem’s Swiss bank account is over $150,000. He was charged with tax evasion and failed to report the income generated from his secret offshore accounts.

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