Former Tech CEO Pleads Guilty to $14M Payroll Tax Fraud

Andrew Park, a New Hampshire resident and former CEO of a startup technology company, has pleaded guilty to evading over $14 million in payroll taxes and failing to file personal tax returns. Park, 49, from Bedford, was responsible for the company’s financial matters, including filing quarterly employment tax returns and managing federal, state, and local tax payments.

From the company’s inception in 2014 until the third quarter of 2021, Park withheld Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes from employees’ wages but did not remit these taxes to the IRS as required by law. Despite hiring a payroll service that regularly notified him of the due taxes and receiving notifications from an employee about discrepancies in Social Security payments, Park failed to pay the necessary taxes. He also neglected to pay the company’s share of Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Additionally, between 2013 and 2020, Park did not file his personal tax returns despite earning an annual salary of around $250,000. This failure contributed to a total tax loss exceeding $14 million to the IRS, along with further losses to state and local tax authorities.

Park’s sentencing is scheduled for November 14. He faces up to five years in prison for willfully failing to account for and pay payroll taxes and an additional year for not filing tax returns. Further penalties may include supervised release, fines, and restitution to the IRS and other tax entities. The final sentence will be determined by a federal district court judge, considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors.

The announcement of Park’s guilty plea was made by Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Jane E. Young for the District of New Hampshire. The case is being investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant Chief Eric Powers of the Tax Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Hunter for the District of New Hampshire.

This article, "Former Tech CEO Pleads Guilty to $14M Payroll Tax Fraud" was first published on Small Business Trends