A 43-year-old Indian-origin man, Anil Surabhi, has been charged with a federal tax violation in Texas, the Justice Department said. Anil Surabhi, 43, an Indian citizen with permanent resident status in the United States, was named in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury this week in the Eastern District of Texas, charging him with attempting to evade taxes, the document said. According to the indictment, Surabhi controls an IT services company headquartered in Georgia. He used funds from the company to fund his private personal investments, pay personal expenses and make investments in real estate. Surabhi did not report those funds as income on his individual income tax returns.In the United States, tax evasion is treated as a serious federal crime, and the punishment can include both criminal and civil penalties. If someone is found guilty of willfully attempting to evade or defeat taxes, they can face up to 5 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 for individuals (or $500,000 for corporations), or both, along with the cost of prosecution.If convicted, Surabhi faces up to 5 years in federal prison.In addition, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can impose civil penalties such as a fraud penalty of 75% of the underpaid taxes and interest on the unpaid amounts. The exact punishment depends on the severity of the offense, the amount of money involved, and whether it was a deliberate act or negligence.In a recent case, Indian-origin Illinois doctor Krishnaswami Sriram was sentenced to 34 months in prison for hiding assets and lying to the IRS, apart from medical fraud. Sriram, of Lake Forest, Illinois, evaded payment of approximately $1.6 million he owed to the IRS. Among other evasive steps, Sriram transferred ownership, in name only, of two rental properties to his children without their knowledge while he continued to receive income from the properties. He also transferred approximately $700,000 from bank accounts he controlled in the United States to accounts in India. To fraudulently reduce the money he owed, Sriram submitted documents to the IRS as part of an offer-in-compromise that omitted an investment account in the United States, bank and investment accounts in India, and ownership of the rental properties. In total, Sriram caused a tax loss to the IRS of approximately $1.6 million.
