Kodiak clinic owner indicted on federal tax evasion charges covering 2018 to 2022

A federal grand jury has indicted a 66-year-old Kodiak physician on five counts of attempting to evade income taxes, one for each year from 2018 through 2022. The indictment was filed Sept. 17 in Anchorage federal court, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Alaska announced the case Friday.

The physician owns a Kodiak general practice clinic offering family medicine, urgent care and surgery. The indictment describes him as the clinic's sole owner, manager, president, director, treasurer and primary physician. Because the clinic is an S corporation, a type of business whose income is generally taxed to its owners rather than the company, and he is its only shareholder, its income was to be reported on his personal return.

For 2018 and 2019, prosecutors allege he signed false corporate and personal returns, kept falsified books that understated 2018 deposits and gave his accountants incomplete records while hiding the clinic's cash income from them.

For 2020 through 2022, prosecutors allege he filed no returns by his extended deadlines. They say he concealed cash by keeping an incomplete accounting of it, directing employees to record it in four separate places, destroying cash receipts and deposit slips and not depositing it. The indictment says he still has not filed a 2021 personal return. Prosecutors also allege he made false statements to investigators, including about his cash income. The alleged conduct runs through about May 2024.

The indictment does not say how much income was allegedly hidden or how much tax is allegedly owed.

Each count carries up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. The U.S. Attorney's Office said an indictment is only an allegation and the physician is presumed innocent.

He made his initial appearance Oct. 9 in Anchorage before Magistrate Judge Kyle F. Reardon. Available court records show no plea or trial date, and no statement from him or his attorney.

The Alaska office called the case part of a national tax enforcement effort by the Justice Department, the IRS and IRS Criminal Investigation. The Justice Department's Oct. 14 announcement of that effort counted 76 defendants and more than $490 million in intended losses across 35 U.S. attorneys' offices, including Alaska.