03-03-2025
Fort Collins dentist pleads guilty to tax evasion through illegal tax shelter
DENVER (KDVR) — A Colorado dentist with a Fort Collins-based practice pleaded guilty Friday to six counts of tax evasion related to using a tax shelter, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Public Affairs.
Ryan Ulibarri owned and operated Ulibarri Family Dentistry in Fort Collins since 2014, and on Friday, he pleaded guilty to concealing over $3.5 million in income from the Internal Revenue Service from 2017 through 2022. Prosecutors said Ulibarri allegedly caused a tax loss of over $1 million to the IRS.
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They also said he used the funds to pay for things like his home's mortgage, credit card bills, boats and professional baseball season tickets.
It all began in 2016, according to court documents, when Ulibarri purchased an 'abusive-trust tax shelter for $50,000.' The tax shelter, according to the press release, concealed income and created false tax deductions through a 'so-called business trust, family trust, charitable trust and a private family foundation, all of which Ulibarri owned and operated,' the office stated.
Prosecutors said that to set it up, Ulibarri acted as the trustee and signed trust instruments to create the three trusts and foundation, and opened bank accounts in the name of each.
'He further recruited friends to falsely sign his trust instruments as the purported creators of the trusts,' the office said in its release. 'Ulibarri then transferred majority ownership of his dental practice to the business trust. Ulibarri did this despite having been warned by attorneys and CPAs (certified public accountants) that, in Colorado, a trust could not own a dental practice.'
Ulibarri pleaded guilty to charges that said he transferred over $3 million in earnings from his dental practice to the tax shelter.
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Lastly, Ulibarri filed false tax returns for himself, Ulibarri Family Dentistry, and the trusts and foundations that reported his dental practice income as the trusts' income. Prosecutors said he claimed fraudulent deductions for personal living expenses under the trust.
Ulibarri is scheduled to be sentenced on June 17 where he faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for the six charges, as well as a period of supervised release, restitution and other monetary penalties.
The case is still under investigation by the IRS Criminal Investigation.
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