Law & Politics
Art Consultant Accused of Hiding $4 Million Inheritance in Secret Swiss Accounts
She is a former consultant for the Museum of Modern Art.
Sarah Cascone
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Art consultant Lacy Doyle has been arrested for failing to pay taxes on over $4 million she inherited from her father, reports the Daily News. The office of Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara accuses Doyle of hiding her millions in a Swiss bank account, filing a false tax return, and creating “at least six secret, undeclared bank accounts in Switzerland and France.”
Currently, Doyle runs her own art advisory services business, ArtView NYC, which, according to the company website, offers “Insider’s Access to the World of Modern & Contemporary Art.”
An image from the ArtView NYC website. Courtesy of ArtView NYC.
The business assists collections with art acquisition and installation, collection management, conservation, storage, and storage, among other services. According to the New York Post, Doyle was an art consultant for New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the 1980s.
Doyle’s father died in 2003, leaving her over $4 million. Afterward, she made several court filings that allegedly misreported the estates’ value at under $1 million. According to a press release from the US Attorney’s Office, Doyle opened an undeclared Swiss bank account “in the name of a sham foundation” in 2006 with the help of Swiss financial advisor Beda Singenberger, “for the purpose of depositing the secret inheritance from her father.”
An image from the ArtView NYC website. Courtesy of ArtView NYC.
The account of the “sham foundation” contained $3,548,380.
“For each of the calendar years from 2004 through 2009, Doyle willfully failed to report on her tax returns her interest in the undeclared accounts and the income generated in those accounts,” notes the press release. “For each of these years, Doyle also failed to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) with the IRS, as the law required her to do.”
The US Attorney’s Office has charged Doyle with one count of obstructing tax law, and one count of filing a false tax return. If convicted, she faces up to six years in prison. In the meantime, Doyle “was released on $500,000 bond,” according to the Daily News.
“We steadfastly deny the allegations and look forward to our day in court,” Doyle’s lawyer Alain Leibman, told the Post.
artnet News reached out to Doyle for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
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