Finance and Economic

A retired sales manager for airplane maker Boeing Co on Monday pleaded guilty to hiding nearly $2 million in Swiss UBS AG accounts, as the United States pursues Americans illegally stashing funds abroad to avoid taxes.

Roberto Cittadini was accused of filing a false tax return omitting that he had an interest in or control over accounts at UBS, as well as failing to report income from the accounts, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Cittadini faces up to three years in jail, a fine of up to $250,000 and a civil penalty equal to 50 percent of the highest account balance between 2001 and 2007, the department said. He will be sentenced in January.

His plea is the seventh so far involving the government’s case against UBS, stemming from a February settlement in which the giant Swiss bank paid the U.S. government $780 million.

“The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) is continuing to do what it has said it would do and it would be foolhardy for people to think that they will go undiscovered or will not be pursued for prosecution once the IRS is on to them,” said Barbara Kaplan, an attorney at Greenberg Traurig in New York who counsels such clients.

According to court documents, Cittadini in 2000 set up a Hong Kong corporation at the suggestion of a Swiss banker, Hansruedi Schumaker, a man U.S. prosecutors in August charged with helping Americans hide their assets from U.S. tax authorities.

The plea deal said Cittadini was counseled by Matthias Rickenbach, a Swiss attorney also indicted for conspiring to defraud the government in August.

It said a Swiss attorney referred to as “A.M.R.” and a UBS banker it called “P.B.” were also involved in the scheme. A Justice Department spokesman declined to discuss those two individuals.

UBS, as part of the February deal with the government, admitted it actively took part in a scheme to defraud the United States by actively helping U.S. citizens conceal their accounts.

UBS also handed over the names of about 250 accounts of American clients. About 150 of those have been farmed out to prosecutors across the country to potentially bring to trial. In a separate settlement, UBS in August agreed to turn over details of another 4,450 accounts of Americans.

“Individuals all over the country who are hiding income and assets in offshore accounts would be well-advised to promptly come in and come clean before the government learns about their accounts through other channels,” John DiCicco, the acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, said in a statement.

A tax amnesty program offered by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service runs through October 15 for Americans to confess to secret accounts hidden overseas.

The case is United States of America v Roberto Cittadini, No. CR 09-0344.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Matthew Lewis, Gerald E. McCormick, Gary Hill)

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