The Tax Times: How Not to Make a Voluntary Disclosure - Inaccurate Filing Leads to Federal Prosecution

According to DoJ, on March 21, 2025 a federal grand jury in Miami returned an indictment charging Dan Rotta, of Aventura, Florida, and Sergio Cernea, of Sao Paolo, Brazil, with conspiring to defraud the United States by concealing income and assets in Swiss bank accounts. The indictment also charged Rotta with tax evasion, filing a false tax return, making a false statement and failing to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts. Rotta was arrested on a related criminal complaint on March 8, 2024.

According to the indictment, between 1985 and 2020, Rotta hid more than $20 million in assets in at least two dozen secret Swiss accounts at five different Swiss banks, including UBS, Credit Suisse, Bank Bonhôte and Bank Julius Baer. The accounts were allegedly held in his own name, in the names of sham structures and, in one instance, a pseudonym. Over the years, Rotta allegedly earned substantial income from these assets that he did not report on his tax returns.

From 2001 through 2017, Rotta allegedly falsely represented to the banks that he was a Brazilian citizen residing in Brazil, even though he had been a naturalized citizen and resident of the U.S. since the 1970s. During those years, Rotta and a company he controlled allegedly received millions of dollars in transfers from his secret Swiss accounts.

According to the indictment, in 2011, after the IRS obtained records related to one of Rotta’s Swiss accounts, Rotta nominally changed the documentation of his accounts at Credit Suisse and Bank Bonhôte to make it appear that Sergio Cernea, a Brazilian national, owned the assets in the accounts. Despite the change, Rotta allegedly continued to control the assets and transferred millions of dollars out of those accounts for his use. Shortly after Rotta changed the account documentation, the IRS allegedly began auditing Rotta.

During the audit, Rotta allegedly falsely denied that he owned the assets in the foreign financial accounts and, instead, claimed that the millions of dollars he withdrew from the accounts were non-taxable loans from Cernea and others.

Rotta Allegedly Provided The IRS With Fake
Promissory Notes And False Affidavits
From Cernea And Others To Corroborate His Claims.

The IRS allegedly did not believe Rotta and assessed millions of dollars of additional taxes as well as penalties and interest against him. According to the indictment, Rotta sought to reverse the assessments by causing the filing of a U.S. Tax Court petition that sought a redetermination of the IRS’s assessments.

In that petition, Rotta, through his attorney, allegedly falsely denied having any foreign accounts and attached the fictitious loan documents. Furthermore, Cernea and another co-conspirator allegedly traveled to the United States to retell the false loan story to IRS attorneys. In 2017, after Rotta allegedly presented evidence that the purported loans had been repaid, the IRS reversed the deficiencies and agreed that Rotta owed no additional tax.

Unbeknownst to the IRS, however, the funds that Rotta purportedly repaid to Cernea and others allegedly went into accounts that Rotta controlled.

According to the indictment, as part of the conspiracy, in 2016, Rotta had attorneys create trusts in the United States that Cernea funded with the assets transferred from the Swiss accounts and held for the benefit of Rotta. In fact, the funds in the trusts allegedly belonged to Rotta, and Rotta controlled the trusts.

In 2019, Rotta allegedly became aware that the IRS would receive additional account records from Switzerland that contradicted the false claims that he had previously made. To avoid criminal liability, Rotta allegedly applied to participate in the IRS’s voluntary disclosure practice. Under that practice, taxpayers who willfully do not comply with their tax and reporting obligations can make timely, accurate and complete disclosures of their conduct, which may be a way to resolve their non-compliance and limit their criminal exposure.

According To The Indictment, Rotta Made A Number Of
False Statements In His Submission, Including Falsely
Claiming The Assets In The Swiss Accounts Mostly
Belonged To Cernea And That Cernea Was Providing
Rotta With Millions Of Dollars Because Cernea Had
No Children When, In Fact, Cernea Had Two.

His attorneys helped him apply in 2019 for an IRS amnesty program that offered reduced penalties and promised no prison time in exchange for voluntarily disclosing hidden foreign bank accounts. Although Rotta made the required disclosures and the IRS initially told him he had been accepted into the program, the agency later stopped responding to his attorneys' requests on the status of his participation, he said. As it turned out, Rotta had been secretly kicked out, he said.

The IRS didn't tell Rotta or his attorneys for a year that Rotta had been removed from the amnesty program, actively misleading them, Rotta said. The agency additionally executed a secret search warrant for Rotta's email account, which he used to communicate with his attorneys.

The DOJ subpoenaed Rotta's attorneys for testimony and documents, claiming that the crime fraud exception pierced the normal attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine, and the court agreed in an April order requiring the production.

In a hearing before U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith of the Southern District of Florida, Dan Rotta, 78, a retired jewelry and watch importer, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

He faces up to five (5) years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Judge Smith set Rotta's sentencing for June 4.