A Colorado dentist who allegedly used an illegal tax shelter to conceal $5 million from the IRS was sentenced on June 17 to prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Dr. Ryan Ulibarri, who pleaded guilty in February to six counts of tax evasion, was sentenced to 41 months in prison. Also, he was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay a $150,000 fine, as well as pay $1,449,121 in restitution to the IRS and $166,966 in restitution to the Colorado Department of Revenue, according to a press release dated June 18 from the DOJ Office of Public Affairs.
In August 2024, a U.S. grand jury in Denver indicted Ulibarri, who owned and operated Ulibarri Family Dentistry in Fort Collins, CO, since 2014, on six counts of tax evasion for his use of an illegal tax shelter.
Dr. Ryan Ulibarri. Image courtesy of Ulibarri Family Dentistry.
In 2016, Ulibarri allegedly purchased an abusive-trust tax shelter for $50,000. From 2017 to 2022, the dentist reportedly used the tax shelter to hide more than $5 million of his income from the IRS, according to the release.
To carry out the tax shelter, Ulibarri allegedly signed trust instruments purporting to create three trusts and a private foundation and opened bank accounts in the name of each entity. Furthermore, Ulibarri allegedly recruited friends to falsely sign his trust instruments as the purported creators of the trusts.
Additionally, he purportedly restructured his dental practice so that most of it was reportedly owned by one of the trusts. The dentist reportedly did this despite attorneys and certified public accountants cautioning him that a trust couldn’t own a dental practice. Nearly all of Ulibarri's earnings from his dental practice were allegedly transferred to the bank accounts he created for the trusts and private foundations, according to the release.
The hidden income was reportedly used to pay Ulibarri's personal expenses, including his home mortgage and credit card bills, as well as to buy boats and professional baseball season tickets.
Lastly, the dentist allegedly filed false tax returns for himself and the trusts. Ulibarri also claimed fraudulent deductions for his personal living expenses that he disguised as trust expenses and charitable donations. Overall, Ulibarri is alleged to have caused a tax loss to the IRS of more than $1 million.
