From the Tax Law Offices of David W. Klasing - Risk of detection and prosecution for failure to pay income taxes is dramatically increased this time of year
IRVINE, Calif., March 1, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Taxpayers that get behind on their taxes commonly feel like they are at the bottom of a large financial hole. A common course of action is to ignore the problem and fall behind on their tax payments or tax return filings. Such inaction can make your problems exponentially worse especially where the federal and state taxing authorities looks for prosecution targets to make an example out of this time of year – tax filing season.
As an example, earlier this month, a Denver businessman was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for failing to pay his taxes. According to a Department of Justice press release, Douglas A. Wieland, an owner of an asphalt company in the Denver area, failed to pay his taxes from 1999 through 2017. Prosecutors alleged that Wieland did not dispute that he owed the IRS for his taxes each year, he simply didn't make his payments.
When the IRS attempted to collect on Wieland's severely overdue tax debt, he took steps to thwart their efforts. Wieland utilized a warehouse bank account, instead of using his personal bank account that the IRS was aware of in an effort to conceal the true owner of the account by commingling funds with others in the same account. He cashed checks from customers in a manner that did not alert to the IRS to his financial activity and admitted he was trying to stop the IRS from "stealing" his money even though by law federal and state agencies are well within their rights to levy funds in your bank accounts if you ignore their efforts to collect.
Wieland pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to pay his taxes in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7203. ordered to pay $166,000 in restitution to the IRS and serve a period of supervised release.
The IRS and Department of Justice will eventually catch up to taxpayers if they have failed to pay their taxes. The longer that a taxpayer waits to remedy their tax noncompliance, the more severe the outcome could be. Tax evasion criminal prosecutions come in two flavors, evasion of assessment and evasion of payment. See the full version of this article HERE.
Contact: Dave Klasing Esq. CPA, [email protected].
SOURCE Tax Law Offices of David W. Klasing
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