Yacht broker pleads guilty to hiding $3.4 million from IRS

— -- On the eve of Wednesday's federal tax filing deadline, a Fort Lauderdale yacht broker pleaded guilty to filing a false income tax return after admitting he failed to disclose more than $3 million in Swiss bank account assets.

The Lighthouse Point resident faces a potential top sentence of three years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine at a scheduled June 26 sentencing.

Defense attorney Gary Bagliebter declined to comment.

Moran, 57, is among up to 300 American clients whose names and account information UBS turned over to U.S. authorities after admitting it helped them evade taxes by opening the accounts in names of sham entities.

The Justice Department is locked in a federal court battle with UBS over demands for similar information on an estimated 52,000 additional U.S. account holders.

"With the filing deadline imminent, most American taxpayers are filing their tax returns and paying the taxes that they owe," said John DiCicco, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's tax division. "Honest taxpayers should rest assured that those who hide assets and income from the IRS face investigation, prosecution and steep fines and jail time."

Federal law requires Americans to file tax returns that report all income and disclose any foreign account they control that contains $10,000 or more in assets. Moran pleaded guilty to a criminal information that charged he failed to disclose his UBS account on his 2007 return.

In a statement of facts filed with the plea, U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta's office said UBS records show Moran was the owner of a UBS account in the name of Winter Drive Investments, a Panamanian firm incorporated in 2000. The account held $3.4 million in assets as of Dec. 31, prosecutors said.

Moran met repeatedly with a UBS banker from 2001 through 2007 to discuss the sale of U.S. securities, purchases of European securities and conversion of investments from euros to U.S. dollars, prosecutors said.