News

Actions

Southfield attorney accused of tax fraud, using attorney trust account to conceal income

gavel.jpeg
Posted at 12:27 PM, Oct 11, 2019
and last updated 2019-10-11 12:27:36-04

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WXYZ) — A Southfield attorney was indicted for tax fraud on Thursday.

Carl L. Collins III is accused of filing two false tax returns and is facing seven counts of willfully failing to file individual and corporate tax returns.

According to the indictment, Collins was a personal injury attorney with offices in Southfield and allegedly owned two medical companies, MedCity Rehabilitation Services and Alpha Living, as well as a real estate company called First Third.

The indictment charges that Collins filed a tax return for 2012 with the IRS, which allegedly failed to report about $550,000 in income. Collins is accused of depositing most of the unreported income into an attorney trust account, which was not disclosed to the Michigan State Bar Foundation and his tax return preparer.

The indictment also alleges that he evaded personal income taxes for 2015 by depositing approximately $580,000 of income into his undisclosed attorney trust account and using the money to purchase real estate.

Collins is accused of filing a false delinquent tax return for 2015 in 2017. He is also accused of failing to timely file his individual tax returns for 2103 through 2015, and corporate income tax returns for MedCity Rehabilitation Services for 2013.

If convicted, Collins faces a maximum of five years in prison for the tax evasion count, three years for each of the false return counts and one year for each of the failure to file counts.