Florida businessman charged with tax evasion

Date: September 12, 2025

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

A federal grand jury in Miami returned an indictment on Wednesday charging a Florida businessman with evading taxes on millions in income and filing false tax returns.

The following is according to the indictment: from 2013 to 2021, Joseph Stewart, of Miami, earned more than $6.8 million in dividends from his 50% ownership in a business that sold internet access to American service members and contractors stationed abroad. Though he filed tax returns before the business became profitable, Stewart allegedly stopped filing timely tax returns once he began receiving significant dividends from his business.

The indictment further alleges that, after Stewart received letters from the IRS in 2019, he hired a tax attorney and return preparers and told them a false story: that over $3.8 million in dividends that he received between 2013 and 2018 were nontaxable loans. Stewart allegedly also falsely told these professionals that he did not know the other shareholders of the business. As a result of these falsehoods, the tax professionals allegedly drafted tax returns for Stewart for 2013 through 2020 that underreported his income and taxes due. Except for the 2013 return, all these false tax returns were allegedly filed with the IRS.

The indictment also alleges that in April 2016, Stewart filed a false affidavit with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service that affirmed that he had filed federal tax returns for the previous three years. Additionally, Stewart allegedly attached false unfiled copies of federal tax returns while falsely attesting that they were the true and correct copies of the returns that had been filed with the IRS.

If convicted, Stewart faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison for each tax evasion count and a maximum penalty of three years in prison for each count of subscribing to a false tax return. Stewart also faces a period of supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

IRS Criminal Investigation and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction are investigating the case.

Trial Attorneys Ezra Spiro and Likhitha Butchireddygari of the Tax Division are prosecuting the case.

IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.