A professor at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale has been convicted of concealing a foreign bank account from the Internal Revenue Service.
Dr. Mingqing Xiao, 60, of Makanda, Ill., was convicted May 4 by a federal jury on charges of lying to federal authorities about a bank account he had in China from 2017 to 2019, according to a May 6 news release. Xiao was convicted of three counts of making a false or fraudulent statement to the IRS on his tax returns and one count of failing to file a foreign bank account report.
“There are foreign entities that exploit American universities and grant agencies," U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft said in the release. "To guard against this abuse, the National Science Foundation requires grant applicants to disclose any conflicting activities, including foreign activities, as a condition of receiving federal funding. Further, all U.S. citizens are obligated to disclose any foreign bank accounts they may have. The evidence established that Dr. Xiao concealed foreign work and hid more than $100,000 of foreign assets in an account in China, and he was properly prosecuted and held accountable.”
According to the DOJ, documents presented in court said he opened an account at Ping An Bank in China in 2016 and received monthly deposits. Several of the funds he received were connected to other sources in China. By 2020, Xiao had saved more than $100,000 in the account.
“As this verdict shows, when you fail to disclose a foreign bank account and submit false income tax statements to the IRS, you are committing tax fraud,” said Darrell J. Waldon, special agent in charge of the IRS-CI Washington field office, in the news release. “Xiao’s acts of fraud and dishonesty undermine the integrity of our system of taxation. Our agency will continue to uphold its mission to investigate tax and financial crimes in order to uphold confidence in our tax system, holding individuals accountable for their crimes.”
U.S. citizens are required by law to report any foreign bank accounts on their tax returns, the DOJ stated.
