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Law360, Miami (July 27, 2016, 6:16 PM ET) — A Florida attorney pled guilty in federal court Wednesday to filing false personal income tax returns for 2007-2012 that resulted in her underpaying her taxes by nearly $1 million for those years.
Kathleen Kozinski, who owns a solo estate planning and probate practice known as Kathleen G. Kozinski PA in Jupiter, Florida, is accused of intentionally underreporting her firm’s gross receipts and her income as well as claiming several false deductions.
She will face up to three years in prison for each of two counts of filing a false tax return when she is sentenced Oct. 7 in West Palm Beach by U.S. District Judge Robin L. Rosenberg, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
As part of her plea agreement with prosecutors, Kozinski has agreed to pay $923,695 in restitution to the IRS, the amount of unpaid and underreported taxes she owes, the DOJ said.
Kozinski did not report all of the receipts from her firm on her Form 1120S income tax return for an S corporation. Shareholders of S corporations must report flow-through income and losses on their personal tax returns and are assessed tax based on their individual tax rates, officials said. As a result of underreporting her business income, Kozinski ended up underreporting her income on her individual Form 1040.
In addition, Kozinski also falsely claimed several deductions, prosecutors said.
For tax year 2007, she claimed “mortgage write-off” losses of $137,293, even though she had not provided a loan to anyone and was not entitled to claim it.
She then claimed a loss of $113,745 on a farm loss Schedule F for 2011, falsely stating she had expenses for labor and insurance when she did not operate any sort of farming business.
And for 2012, she claimed $39,001 in home office expenses but did not actually have a home office.
Kozinski’s counsel, James L. Eisenberg, said they would tell her story at sentencing and declined to comment further Wednesday.
The case against Kozinski was filed Dec. 17, and she was released on a $500,000 bond after making her initial appearance in January.
Her guilty plea was delayed from the spring, in part to allow for a mental health evaluation for competency. According to case documents, Eisenberg had expressed a good faith belief that Kozinski may not be competent, citing an earlier mental health evaluation he received for medical purposes that raised concerns.
The U.S. is represented by Aurora Fagan of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Kozinski is represented by James L. Eisenberg.
The case is U.S. v. Kozinski, case number 9:15-cr-80227, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
–Editing by Brian Baresch.
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