DENVER (KDVR) — Ryan Ulibarri, a dentist based in Fort Collins, Colorado, pleaded guilty on Friday to six counts of tax evasion for using an illegal tax shelter to conceal over $3.5 million in income from the IRS between 2017 and 2022. Ulibarri, who owns Ulibarri Family Dentistry, allegedly caused a tax loss of more than $1 million.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs, Ulibarri used the hidden income to pay for personal expenses, including his home mortgage, credit card bills, boats, and professional baseball season tickets.
The case dates back to 2016, when Ulibarri purchased an “abusive-trust tax shelter” for $50,000. This tax shelter helped conceal his income and fabricate false deductions through a network of trusts, including a “business trust, family trust, charitable trust, and private family foundation,” all of which he owned and operated. Ulibarri acted as the trustee, signing trust instruments to create these entities and opening bank accounts under their names. He also recruited friends to falsely sign the trust documents, presenting them as the purported creators of the trusts.
Ulibarri transferred the majority ownership of his dental practice to the business trust, despite being advised by attorneys and certified public accountants that Colorado law prohibits a trust from owning a dental practice.
As part of his guilty plea, Ulibarri admitted to transferring over $3 million in earnings from his practice to the tax shelter and filing fraudulent tax returns for himself, his dental practice, and the trusts. These returns falsely reported the income as belonging to the trusts and claimed unjustified deductions for personal living expenses.
Ulibarri is scheduled to be sentenced on June 17. He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for the six charges, as well as potential supervised release, restitution, and other financial penalties. The investigation into Ulibarri’s actions is ongoing, led by the IRS Criminal Investigation.
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