BEVERLY HILLS—Beverly Hills resident, Teymour Khoubian, 65, pled guilty in court on Monday, November 19 to filing false tax returns and failing to report income earned on money that he placed in an offshore account. Khoubian was indicted on July 13, 2017 by authorities.

The United States Department of Justice reported on its website from 2006 through 2014, Khoubian impeded the administration of the internal revenue laws by filing false individual tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for tax years 2005 through 2010. He did not report his financial interest in multiple Israeli and German bank accounts or the interest income that he earned from those accounts.

Khoubian falsely claimed refundable tax credits which he was not entitled, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is intended for low-to moderate-income working individuals. In 2008, he held approximately $20 million in assets in his undisclosed accounts. He filed a false 2011 tax return that underreported the interest income he earned from his Israeli accounts and continued to fail to disclose that he held an account in Germany. Khoubian filed false 2012 and 2013 Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts forms (FBARs) with the U.S. Department of Treasury that hid his German account. U.S. citizens, resident aliens, and permanent legal residents with a foreign financial interest in or signatory authority over a foreign financial account worth more than $10,000 are required to file an FBAR disclosing the account.

The defendant also provided his German bank with a copy of his Iranian passport and a residential address located in Israel to prevent the bank from disclosing the account to the IRS. He sent a letter to Bank Leumi falsely claiming he was living in Iran when, he resided in Beverly Hills, California.

Khoubian was charged with making false statements to an IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) special agent – denying that he owned an account in Germany between 2005 and 2010, stating that the German account was closed, when it was still open, and stating that the funds were transferred to the United States, when he transferred over $600,000 from his German account to his accounts in Israel.

As part of his sentence, Khoubian will pay a civil penalty estimated at $7.7 million and $600,000 to the IRS. Khoubian faces a statutory maximum sentence of three years in prison for corruptly endeavoring to impede the internal revenue laws and each count of filing a false return and five years in prison for each count of filing a false FBAR and making a false statement.