He Was the Whole Foundation: A Team Owner, $4.5 Million, and a Guilty Plea

He was the founder. He was the president. He was the treasurer, the secretary, and the chairman of the board. There was nobody else — no other officers, no other board members, no employees at all. And according to federal prosecutors, that is exactly how Michael Kahn ran The Michael A. Kahn Family Foundation — right up until the money started moving to himself.

A charity with an audience of one

Kahn, 66, of Charlotte — the former majority owner of the Charlotte Checkers hockey team — founded the foundation in 2010 as a tax-exempt organization, on paper dedicated to charitable, religious, and educational purposes. He held every leadership role in it. With every title held by one man and nobody else in the structure, there was no second set of eyes — no independent oversight at all.

And between 2020 and 2023, prosecutors say, Kahn transferred more than $4.5 million from the foundation to himself.

Then came the second problem: he did not report those funds as income on his 2020 tax return.

From indictment to guilty plea

Federal prosecutors first unsealed an indictment against Kahn in January 2026, charging him with two counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return and two counts of failure to file a tax return. The indictment alleged the unreported foundation money spanned his 2020 and 2021 returns, and that he failed to file returns at all for 2022 and 2023.

On Monday, October 26, 2026, Kahn appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge David C. Keesler in Charlotte and pleaded guilty to aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return.

U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson put the line plainly: people have the right to use tax strategy to legally reduce their taxes — “we will prosecute those who go beyond that and break the law.”

IRS Criminal Investigation, which ran the investigation, made the foundation point directly. Special Agent in Charge Donald “Trey” Eakins: “Tax-exempt organizations are granted special status to serve charitable purposes, not to enrich those who control them.”

Where the case stands

Kahn has pleaded guilty. He has not been sentenced. At sentencing he faces a maximum of three years in prison. A federal district court judge will decide the actual sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors, and no sentencing date has been set.

The rule this case teaches

A private family foundation is not a personal bank account with a charitable name. The money inside it belongs to the charitable purpose — not to the founder, no matter how many titles the founder holds. When a founder moves foundation money to himself, the government treats those transfers as income that belongs on a tax return — that was the core of this case — and skipping it is the fact pattern that turns a tax problem into a criminal case.

The practical version, for anyone who controls a nonprofit or foundation:

• One person holding every title is a red flag in itself — independent oversight is what makes a foundation real.
• Every dollar out needs a charitable purpose and a paper trail.
• Money that lands in your own pocket from the foundation is reportable income. Report it, or the IRS-CI version of the conversation eventually happens.

If the IRS is already asking questions about money that moved — from a foundation, a business, or anywhere else — the time to get a licensed CPA involved is before the next return is filed, not after an agent calls. The first case review is free: 15 minutes with a live licensed CPA.

Alex Volkov, CPA is a New York-licensed CPA with over two decades in accounting, focused on resolving IRS tax problems — back taxes, liens, levies, garnishments, and audits — for individuals and businesses in all 50 states and around the world.