Sameer Gupta to serve 19 months in prison, pay heavy fine.
By American Bazaar Staff
NEW YORK: In yet another case of tax evasion by hiding funds in an overseas account of HSBC Bank, a New Jersey-based businessman, Sameer Gupta, has been sentenced to a jail time of 19 months, an additional two years of supervised release, and a fine of over a quarter million dollars to the US Treasury department, after he was found guilty of hiding more than $1.2 million in income from 2006-2009.
Gupta, 33, who runs an adult paraphernalia wholesale business based in New York, had pleaded guilty earlier this year of diverted $822,916 from his business, J.S. Marketers, to various domestic and foreign bank accounts. According to Federal prosecutors, the tax loss from that amounted to $383,475, not including interest and penalties.
According to The Star-Ledger newspaper, from 2006 through 2009, Gupta diverted $822,916 of the business’ receipts into 17 different personal bank accounts held in the names of various individuals, including himself and family members. He directed more than $250,000 of those diverted funds into six different accounts held offshore at a branch of HSBC in India.
Also, from 2007 through 2009, Gupta caused 22 J.S. Marketers corporate checks to be made payable to himself and family members in amounts identical to invoices from the business’ suppliers, said the Star-Ledger.
Gupta endorsed those checks, which totaled $375,138, and deposited them into bank accounts that he controlled. Gupta filed individual income tax returns for the years 2006 through 2009 that did not report his income from the diverted funds.
The report said Gupta also failed to file reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, (FBARs), for 2006 through 2008. In the recent past, several such cases of wealthy Indian Americans who held bank accounts in HSBC and got arrested and prosecuted for tax evasion, has come to light.