![[Illinois] Businessman gets 4 years for $8m payroll tax scheme](http://globalpayrollassociation.com/cdn/shop/articles/bigstock-Payroll-Taxes-Symbol-Concept--401852708_1200x.jpg?v=1629934575)
A business owner in southern Illinois has received a four-year prison sentence after withholding more than $8 million in payroll taxes from employee pay cheques, AP News reports.
Federal authorities said the man had withheld the money to help “build his empire.”
On August 17, Gary Hunsche (56) was also sentenced to 18 months of supervised release. In May he pleaded guilty to wilfully failing to pay millions of dollars in federal payroll taxes.
Mr Hunsche was the owner-operator of Unique Personnel Consultants, a staffing company based in Troy with between 3,000 and 5,000 temporary workers who were outsourced to clients.
In pleading guilty, Mr Hunsche admitted that between 2011 and 2016, he withheld federal income taxes, Medicare and Social Security taxes totalling $8 million from employees’ pay cheques without turning those funds over to the IRS, the Belleville News-Democrat reported.
According to charging documents filed in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Mr Hunsche used at least $4 million of the withheld money to expand his “personal empire” and pay for renovations to his home, including a pond and a barn with a full-sized basketball court.
In a press release Tyler Hatcher - special agent in charge of IRS-Criminal Investigations St. Louis Field Office - said, “Thousands of employees trusted Mr Hunsche to properly collect and pay employment taxes but Mr Hunsche admitted that he chose to spend the money to build his empire.”
Source: AP News
(Link via original reporting)
A business owner in southern Illinois has received a four-year prison sentence after withholding more than $8 million in payroll taxes from employee pay cheques, AP News reports.
Federal authorities said the man had withheld the money to help “build his empire.”
On August 17, Gary Hunsche (56) was also sentenced to 18 months of supervised release. In May he pleaded guilty to wilfully failing to pay millions of dollars in federal payroll taxes.
Mr Hunsche was the owner-operator of Unique Personnel Consultants, a staffing company based in Troy with between 3,000 and 5,000 temporary workers who were outsourced to clients.
In pleading guilty, Mr Hunsche admitted that between 2011 and 2016, he withheld federal income taxes, Medicare and Social Security taxes totalling $8 million from employees’ pay cheques without turning those funds over to the IRS, the Belleville News-Democrat reported.
According to charging documents filed in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Mr Hunsche used at least $4 million of the withheld money to expand his “personal empire” and pay for renovations to his home, including a pond and a barn with a full-sized basketball court.
In a press release Tyler Hatcher - special agent in charge of IRS-Criminal Investigations St. Louis Field Office - said, “Thousands of employees trusted Mr Hunsche to properly collect and pay employment taxes but Mr Hunsche admitted that he chose to spend the money to build his empire.”
Source: AP News
(Link via original reporting)