H. Ty Warner, the creator of Beanie Babies plush toys, has pleaded guilty to tax evasion on US$25 million stashed secretly in UBS bank account.
Warner has agreed to pay a civil penalty of almost US$53.6 million for failure to file a foreign bank account report and also faces a fine of as much as US$250,000.
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Warner, who entered his plea before a federal judge in Chicago, could get up to five years in prison when he is sentenced, which is scheduled for 15 January next year.
The charge against Warner results from an ongoing investigation by the IRS of bank accounts established by the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) for US clients.
Warner was accused of failing to report to the IRS income earned from that account. He attempted to evade US$885,300 in income taxes he otherwise would have had to pay for 2002.
Warner has admitted to failing to report US$3.2 million in income on a secret UBS AG account that held as much as US$93.6 million.
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By GlobalDataHe has admitted that he evaded paying US$5 million in taxes due over 11 years by setting up the secret accounts. By 2008, the balance of that undisclosed account exceeded US$107 million.
The US since 2009 has prosecuted about 70 US taxpayers and 30 bankers, lawyers and advisers in a crackdown on offshore tax evasion.
