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Source: Chicago TribuneSept.存倉 19--A four-year crackdown by the IRS on tax cheats with offshore bank accounts has ensnared Chicago-area billionaire Ty Warner, creator of collectible Beanie Babies toys, a consumer craze in the 1990s.Warner will plead guilty to one count of felony tax evasion and faces up to five years in prison, authorities said. His arraignment is slated for Oct. 2.He also reached a deal to pay a civil penalty of $53.5 million for "failure to file a foreign bank account report," Warner's attorney said in a separate statement. Warner did not return phone calls seeking comment. The amount could make it the largest offshore-account penalty ever publicly reported, said Jack Townsend, a Houston lawyer who tracks offshore account cases.The Oak Brook resident was charged with using a secret Swiss bank account to avoid U.S. taxes, the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago said. Warner's lawyer, Gregory Scandaglia, confirmed Warner reached an agreement to resolve an investigation into an overseas account he opened in 1996.Such secret accounts cost the Treasury at least $100 billion annually, a U.S. Senate report estimated in 2008.Since an IRS crackdown on such accounts began in 2009, the U.S. has prosecuted 68 U.S. taxpayers, three Swiss banks, and 30 bankers, lawyers and advisers. An additional 38,000 Americans have moved $5.5 billion to the U.S. and avoided prosecution by disclosing who helped them hide their money.Warner, 69, is the sole owner of Westmont-based toy designer Ty Inc. and ranks 209th in a recent Forbes list of richest Americans. His net worth is estimated at $2.6 billion. He also has a hotel chain; Ty Warner Hotel & Resort Properties includes the I.M. Pei-created Four Seasons Hotel in New York, which features the "Ty Warner Penthouse." The low-profile Warner has rarely granted interviews."Warner went to great lengths to hide from his accountants and the IRS more than $3.1 million in foreign income generated in a secret Swiss account," Gary Shapiro, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said in a statement. He failed to pay taxes of $885,300 on that income, court documents said."This is an unfortunate situation that Mr. Warner has been trying to resolve for years now," Scandaglia said. "Mr. Warner accepts full responsibility for his actions with this plea agreement."Warner is the second taxpayer charged in federal court in Chicago in connection with an ongoing investigation of U.S. taxpayer clients of Union Bank of Switzerland, better known as UBS, and other overseas banks that hid foreign accounts from the IRS.The first was UBS customer Peter Troost, 79, owner of a Skokie cemetery monument company who pleaded guilty in March to using a Swiss bank account to evade taxes. (Troost is not affiliated with longtime monument company Peter Troost Monument Co. of Hillside.)Troost paid more than $1 million in back taxes, as well as $3.75 million in penalties.In July, a federal judge said those payments alone would not sufficiently deter wealthy tax cheats. He also sentenced Troost to one year and one day in prison, in addition to 200 hours of community service after he is released from prison, and $32,500 in additional fines.Reached on Wednesday, Troost said he and other tax evaders deserve to be punished, but jail time was unwarranted. He has not yet begun to serve prison time and said he is appealing his sentence."I feel that I'm being unjustly treated," Troost said. "I paid a very substantial penalty, and I'm very remorseful. ... This incarceration is ridiculous."Whether Warner will also face jail time is uncertain.Chicago attorney Robert McKenzie, a partner at Arnstein & Lehr, said many judges have been tacking on prison sentences in addition to stiff fines. "It depends partly on the judge, but given Mr. Troost's events, I think (Warner) has a danger that he might be sent to jail."So far, most of the people sentenced in the crackdown have received probation, according to Bloomberg News.Laws requiring reporting of foreign accounts have been around for decades. Taxpayers must report financial accounts in foreign countries if the total value of the accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year.But the government began taking a harder look at offshore accounts after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, largely funded by foreign money coming into the U.S. The Patriot Act required more reporting by financial institutions of money coming into and going out of the country, McKenzie said.The biggest breakthrough came in 2009, when UBS entered into an agreement with the United States, admitting that it helped taxpayers hide accounts from the IRS. As part of the deal, UBS paid a fine of $780 million and delivered the names of more t迷你倉an 4,000 clients, giving U.S. authorities information that enabled them to pursue other Swiss banks.Fourteen firms, including Credit Suisse Group AG, the second-largest Swiss bank; HSBC Holdings Plc, the largest European bank; and Julius Baer Group Ltd., Switzerland's third-largest wealth manager, are under criminal investigation.The IRS has conducted several amnesty programs since 2009, allowing U.S. taxpayers who had failed to report offshore accounts to pay stiff penalties but avoid prosecution. Warner applied to the program in 2009 but was rejected.The Chicago area alone likely has thousands of foreign-bank account holders who have come forward as a result of the IRS crackdown and taken advantage of amnesty programs, McKenzie said. He said he has represented some 240 clients who chose to voluntarily disclose their previously unreported foreign accounts and pay the back taxes and penalties."I think there are lots of Americans who have foreign accounts, not just Swiss accounts," he said. "We know that hundreds of thousands of Americans now properly report their foreign accounts as a result of this crackdown since 2009."But McKenzie said he has talked with about 100 more people who didn't want to pay the penalties and presumably decided to take their chances by continuing to hide money in offshore accounts.More than half the people McKenzie has represented in amnesty cases are immigrants, many from Asia and wealthier European countries. Some were ignorant of the reporting requirement, he said."I wouldn't characterize an immigrant who doesn't know the U.S. rules -- who doesn't report her account in Japan that she inherited from her dad -- as somebody who's evil," he said.Other clients "sought to beat the system.""I also have the out-and-out tax cheat," McKenzie said. Many have come forward to avoid criminal charges, he added.In Warner's case, the U.S. government says he maintained a secret offshore account with UBS starting in 1996.In December 2002, he transferred assets in his UBS account to a second Swiss financial institution, Zurcher Kantonalbank, when the account had a balance of $93.6 million, according to court documents.Warner also "concealed his name from being listed on the ZKB account by holding the account in the name of a purported 'Molani Foundation,'" court documents said.In 2002, Warner earned about $3.1 million in gross income through investments held in his UBS account, according to the charge. Warner allegedly committed tax evasion for that year by failing to tell his accountants about that income and by failing to report that income or the existence of the UBS account in his 2002 tax form filed with the IRS."By omitting his UBS income, Warner falsely reported his total income in 2002 was $49.1 million," according to the charge.Aside from alleged tax evasion, the deliberate failure to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts form with the IRS can result in a civil penalty of up to 50 percent of the amount in the account at the time of the violation.Court documents said the account balance had reached $93.6 million. But that value fluctuated, and Warner's $53 million civil penalty is half of the peak balance during the relevant time period.Despite attempting to keep a low profile, Warner is also known as a philanthropist.In 1999, Warner agreed to donate $3 million to develop 36 acres of land into a park on Westmont's north side."I believe he fell in love with the concept of the park across the way from his complex," Westmont Mayor Ron Gunter said.The $3 million grew as Warner had ideas of amenities to add to the park: lighting for the athletic fields, a 1-mile path around the perimeter, a pavilion, tennis courts, decorative lighting, a formal fountain."We had that vision, too, but we didn't have the money," Gunter said.When Ty Warner Park opened on Independence Day 2000, its namesake had paid for more than three-fourths of the $12 million project."What he did for us is he gave us a showcase facility for the entire region," Gunter said. A few years later, Warner bought 5 acres just south of the park for $5 million and donated it to the Park District. Originally planned to be the site of a pool complex, it is home to a soccer field.In all, Warner gave about $14 million to the projects, Gunter said."We'd never have anywhere near the facility that we have now," Gunter said. "It was his vision and his generosity that made the park what it is today."Dawn Rhodes, Ameet Sachdev, Kathy Bergen, Samantha Bomkamp, Melissa Harris, Reuters and Bloomberg contributed.___byerak@tribune.com Twitter @beckyyerakCopyright: ___ (c)2013 Chicago Tribune Visit the Chicago Tribune at .chicagotribune.com Distributed by MCT Information Services自存倉