Great Neck brothers admit false tax returns, hiding bank accounts

Two brothers from Great Neck pleaded guilty Wednesday to hiding Israeli bank accounts from tax agencies, with each agreeing to pay half of a total of $15.4 million in civil penalties, officials said.

Parviz Hakimian, 70, and Khosrow Hakimian, 64, face maximum prison sentences of 3 years for filing false tax returns, according to the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

“The Hakimian brothers took extreme measures to evade paying millions in taxes, while other taxpayers paid their fair share,” James D. Robnett, special agent-in-charge, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, said in a statement.

The lawyers for the two men had no immediate comment.

Under the 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, the United States has been cracking down on taxpayers who fail to disclose their offshore bank accounts, experts said.

Richard P. Donoghue, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a joint statement with Robnett, said: “This Office and our law enforcement partners will continue to work together to ensure that individuals who attempt to evade their responsibilities as taxpayers are held accountable.”

The U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately identify the defendants’ lawyers or provide many details, including the name of the bank, which was headquartered in Tel Aviv.

Prosecutors charged that from 2009 to 2011 the two defendants concealed their bank accounts at an Israeli private bank.

“The bank provided private banking services to, and maintained undeclared accounts for, United States taxpayers,” they said.

The two brothers also failed to inform tax authorities of the interest they earned on those accounts, prosecutors said.