The IRS has filed felony criminal tax charges pursuant to Internal Revenue Code Section 7202 for willful failure to collect, truthfully account for and pay over trust fund taxes. This is yet another in a series of criminal tax charges being brought against responsible officers who haven’t paid over corporate trust fund taxes. In most situations the IRS proceeds against responsible officers who willfully fail to pay corporate trust fund taxes, by assessing the tax directly against the individual under Internal Revenue Code Section 6672. This is generally referred to as the trust fund recovery penalty. Sometimes the IRS goes further and brings criminal tax charges.
In this case the defendant is a New York CPA who, according to the information filed in U.S. District Court, failed to pay payroll taxes to the IRS for three years running. Our tax lawyers found this case interesting because the amount of unpaid trust fund taxes was not terribly large. The total the IRS alleged as unpaid was approximately $108,000, fairly small potatoes, as payroll tax cases tend to go.
I thought it was important to blog about this case because clients sometimes assume that the relatively small size of their tax problem will insulate them against criminal tax liability. While that is generally accurate, as this case illustrates, not always.
If you have payroll tax problems, or other kinds of tax problems contact the tax controversy lawyers at Brager Tax Law Group, A PC to find out more about your options.