Taxable Talk

Two stories regarding employment taxes from the past week should serve as a reminder that paying employment taxes is only optional until you get caught.

First, an update on the individual who thought he could just create a new business entity every time the IRS asked about his paying employment taxes. Agim Zendeli owned the Ziggies chain of restaurants in Missouri; he pleaded guilty in January to not remitting $1.3 million in payroll taxes. He was sentenced to 37 months at ClubFed and must make restitution of $1.3 million (which he had previously agreed to do).

Meanwhile, out of Germantown, Tennessee (suburban Memphis) comes the story of Larry Thornton. Mr. Thornton was the majority owner of one Memphis business and the sole owner of another. I’ll let the DOJ press release tell the story:

Beginning in the second quarter of 2007, Thornton caused SEI to stop paying over the taxes required to be withheld from SEI’s employees’ paychecks and caused SEI to stop timely filing Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Returns, Forms 941, with the IRS. Beginning in the first quarter of 2010, Thornton caused First Touch to stop paying over the taxes required to be withheld from First Touch’s employees’ paychecks and caused First Touch to fail to timely file Forms 941 with the IRS. Between 2007 and 2011, Thornton collected more than $6.8 million in employment taxes from SEI and First Touch employees’ paychecks, but failed to pay those collected taxes over to the IRS. Thornton also failed to pay his companies’ matching share of FICA taxes during those years. During that time period, two of Thornton’s full-time accountants – both of whom were certified public accountants (CPAs) – warned Thornton about his failure to pay over employment taxes. Both CPAs resigned their positions due to Thornton’s unwillingness to comply with his employment tax obligations.

During the same years in which Thornton failed to comply with his employment tax obligations, Thornton spent more than $6.2 million from the business bank accounts on personal expenses, including house and condominium payments; vehicle, yacht and motorcycle loan payments; personal travel; and start-up funding for his wife’s beauty boutique. According to court documents, Thornton also failed to file personal and corporate income tax returns. As part of the guilty plea, Thornton admitted that his illegal conduct caused a tax loss of more than $8.9 million to the IRS.

Of course the IRS will understand spending $6.2 million on personal expenses rather than remitting your payroll taxes. I mean what’s more important: buying a yacht or paying the government? Mr. Thornton was sentenced to full restitution and to spend one year at ClubFed.

As a reminder, all employment tax remission issues are investigated by the IRS. If you want to visit ClubFed, having employees and not remitting payroll taxes is a quick and easy way to do so.

Ronald Reagan said, “Facts are stupid things.” Well, one fact that I’ve mentioned in the past is that IRS Criminal Investigations looks at all allegations of employment tax fraud. The reason is obvious: The IRS doesn’t like the idea of people stealing from them. I’ve been saying this for the ten-plus years that I’ve been writing this blog.

Andrew Parish of Chillicothe, Ohio apparently doesn’t read this blog, and also apparently didn’t consider how his scheme would fail. Mr. Parish hired a firm to prepare his payroll and send the reports to the IRS and Ohio–all well and good so far. He then decided to issue paychecks directly. That wouldn’t have been an issue if Mr. Parish had told his payroll company. I’m sure you’re a couple steps ahead of me: He didn’t, nor did he issue his own payroll reports. But he did include the withholding on the paychecks.

The employees naturally included this withholding on their tax returns. That withholding wasn’t going to match IRS records, and sooner or later the IRS was going to investigate. When the amount missing matched the amount of those paychecks, it wasn’t going to take a genius to figure out where the error occurred.

(An interesting digression: This past April one of my clients received an IRS notice because the withholding on his return didn’t match IRS records. I looked at the W-2’s (my client had multiple employers) and they matched perfectly. It turns out that the error is exactly the amount of the withholding from one employer, and that money apparently hasn’t made it to the IRS. My client is a pack-rat, and had all of his paychecks and his W-2’s, and everything tied perfectly. The IRS requested a copy of those records; it is a near certainty that IRS Criminal Investigations is looking into this. But I digress….)

As for Mr. Parish, he pleaded guilty earlier this year to failing to account for and pay over employment taxes to the IRS. He was sentenced to 18 months at ClubFed and must make restitution of $341,336. A helpful hint to those thinking of not remitting employment taxes: This had a zero percent chance of success in 2005 and the odds haven’t improved in the last ten years.

If you want to go to prison for tax evasion, there’s an easy method: Withhold payroll taxes and don’t remit them to the IRS or your state tax agency. The government investigates all such actions (or should I say inactions). One New York businessman will likely have some time to think that over.

Patrick White is the owner of R & L Construction in Yonkers, New York. He liked his home and he liked to gamble. There’s nothing wrong with that. He took payroll taxes withheld from his business and used that money for his homes and for gambling. There’s a lot wrong with that, especially when it totals $3,758,000. Mr. White pleaded guilty to one count of failing to pay over payroll taxes to the government. He’ll be sentenced in May.

This is a good time to point out that if you are a business owner, you should check to make sure your payroll taxes are being sent to the IRS. You can do so by using EFTPS. You’re personally liable for those taxes, so it’s worth verifying the money makes its way where it belongs. If you use employee leasing (a PEO), you can’t verify this by EFTPS so you will need to find a different method of doing so.