A Charlotte businessman has pleaded guilty to tax fraud, federal prosecutors announced Monday, though the office did not release the man's name, age or the specific facts behind his plea in its initial statement.
The announcement came in a social media post from the U.S. Attorney WDNC
, the federal prosecutor's office for the Western District of North Carolina, which said the case was handled in collaboration with IRS Criminal Investigation. The post, shared under the handle @usao_wdnc, read simply: “Charlotte businessman pleads guilty to tax fraud.” No additional case details, such as the court, the plea date or the man's potential sentencing exposure, were included in the office's public statement.
Kahn’s public profile extended beyond the case: He owned the Charlotte Checkers beginning in 2006, sold a controlling stake in 2024 and remained a minority owner, WFAE reported. The Checkers are a local hockey franchise, making the case one involving a businessman with a prominent role in Charlotte sports as well as in the family foundation named in the indictment.
A Pattern Of Tax Enforcement In The Charlotte Region
One case, detailed in a separate release from the Department of Justice, accused Michael Kahn, a Charlotte businessman who founded a charitable organization, of transferring more than $4.5 million from the foundation to himself and failing to report those funds as income on his 2020 and 2021 tax returns.
The indictment described the Michael A. Kahn Family Foundation as a tax-exempt organization Kahn established in 2010 for charitable, religious and educational purposes. Prosecutors alleged he held every leadership role and that the foundation had no other officers, board members or employees. The alleged transfers occurred from 2020 through 2023; prosecutors said the case also involved unfiled returns for 2022 and 2023. Those allegations were part of the original case, not all details of the later guilty plea. The indictment announcement lays out the alleged structure and transactions.
Other recent cases out of the region underscore how often tax-related prosecutions have touched Charlotte. A Charlotte tax return preparer was sentenced to 24 months in prison for assisting in the filing of false tax returns, according to a Justice Department announcement from February 2025. Around the same time, a North Carolina-area resident was sentenced to 41 months in prison for involvement in a separate fraudulent tax return scheme, the Justice Department said.
Similar Cases Beyond North Carolina
Federal tax enforcement actions have also surfaced outside the Charlotte region. In Jacksonville, a local businessman pleaded guilty in January to evading millions of dollars in federal income taxes, according to the IRS. And in a case tied directly to Western District of North Carolina prosecutors, former NASCAR team owner Ronald Devine, of Burke, Virginia, pleaded guilty to failing to pay payroll taxes, the IRS said in its own announcement, which quoted Ferguson by name.
The case has moved beyond the indictment stage: Kahn admitted filing a false federal tax return for 2020, Law360 reported in October. The original indictment charged two counts of aiding in the preparation of false returns and two counts of failing to file returns. Prosecutors’ January announcement listed maximum penalties for those original counts, but the eventual sentence is for a judge to determine; the guilty-plea report identifies the 2020 false-return admission.
None of those cases have been shown to involve the same businessman named in Monday's announcement, and the U.S. Attorney's office has not released further identifying details about him. It remains unclear when additional information, including the man's name, charges and sentencing date, will be made public.
