A chiropractor with a practice in Hoover pleaded guilty this week to evading more than $2.5 million in taxes.
Gary Forrest Edwards, 65, of Maylene, pleaded guilty during his trial in Birmingham after the United States presented two witnesses and several exhibits.
According to court documents and evidence admitted during trial, from 2015 to 2023, Edwards attempted to avoid paying more than $2.5 million in income taxes and obstructed the IRS’s efforts to collect those taxes.
Edwards owned and operated Hoover Health and Wellness Center. In 2015, he agreed to and did file delinquent income tax returns with the IRS for tax years 2009 through 2013. He later filed an income tax return for 2017.
Despite filing the returns and reporting millions of dollars in taxable income, Edwards never paid the more than $2.5 million in taxes he admitted he owed—or near $1.9 million in penalties and interest he’d also racked up.
Court documents also reflected Edwards’ admission to the ways he evaded paying, including:
- Concealing financial accounts he owned from the IRS
- Transferring funds from accounts he owned to accounts in only his spouse’s name
- Filing false court documents to terminate federal tax liens against his property
- Lying to IRS criminal investigators
Edwards will be sentenced later this year and faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for the evasion charge and three years on the obstruction charge.
He also faces a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties.
