Financial Planner Who Did Not File Tax Returns or Pay Income Tax on Nearly $1,500,000 in Income Sentenced to Federal Prison

 A financial planner who failed to file income tax returns for eight years after failing to do so for seven earlier years was sentenced today to three months in federal prison.

Matthew Westberry, age 43, from Marion, Iowa, received the prison term after a July 22, 2025, guilty plea to two counts of failure to file a tax return.

In a plea agreement, Westberry admitted that he did not file a tax return from 2006 to 2012.  After being contacted by tax authorities in 2013, Westberry filed delinquent returns for those years and a tax return for 2013.  However, he did not pay the income tax he owed for 2008 through 2013.

After filing a tax return in 2013, Westberry stopped filing tax returns.  He did not file a tax return for any year between 2014 and 2021.  During those years, Westberry had gross income of nearly $1,500,000 from his work as a financial planner.  He paid no income tax on those earnings during those years.  Westberry should have paid more than $250,000 in federal income tax for that income.

As a result of his failure to pay income taxes for 2008 to 2013, the IRS placed two liens on a piece of property Westberry had agreed to purchase.  Westberry did not go through with the purchase but did not have the liens removed from the property.  When the property owner tried to sell the property to someone else, the owner discovered the IRS liens in Westberry’s name.  To get the liens off the property, Westberry filed false lien releases with the Linn County Recorder’s Office.  He prepared the lien releases to look like they came from the IRS.  Westberry was convicted of forgery in state court for filing the false lien releases.

Westberry was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States Magistrate Judge Mark Roberts.  Westberry was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.  Once he is released from prison, he will have to serve an additional three months of home confinement.  He was ordered to make $264,502 in restitution to the IRS.  He must also serve a one-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  Westberry had paid approximately $36,000 towards restitution prior to his sentencing.  There is no parole in the federal system.

Westberry was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date yet to be set.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Anthony Morfitt and investigated by the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.  

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

The case file number is 25-cr-00054.

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