No matter how you slice it, pizza is one of America’s favorite meals. It’s easy to make a phone call to a pizza delivery service or bake a frozen pizza pie when time is short. And let’s not forget that a cold piece of pizza in the morning is quite scrumptious. (OK, so can you tell how much I like pizza?) Well, it appears that fraudsters like pizza too. They not only like to eat it, but as mentioned in a press release from the Department of Justice, a brother and sister pair from Michigan used their pizza franchises to commit tax fraud.
The press release states that for nearly seven years, the owner of numerous pizza franchises headed up a scheme to divert gross receipts from restaurant sales and underreport wages, taxable income and payroll tax information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). (The IRS lost about $200,000 through those fraudulent orders.) In addition, the owner’s sister caused false payroll information forms to be submitted. She underreported about $55,000 in wages. (That would buy a mountain of Mozzarella.)
The brother pleaded guilty to obstructing or impeding the administration of the internal revenue laws and faces up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The sister pleaded guilty to willfully delivering false documents to the IRS and is looking at a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
In this case, greed drove the brother and sister fraudsters to seek more than their fair share of the pizza pie from the government. For whatever reason, these two committed their illegal acts on purpose and with the intent to defraud. (These criminals deserve to pay for their crime and part of their punishment should be the no fresh pizza for the foreseeable future. That’s almost worse than serving time in prison.)
Source: Today’s ”Fraud of the Day” is based on a press release titled, ”Happy’s Pizza Franchise Owner and Nominee Owner Plead Guilty in Tax Fraud Scheme,” published by the Department of Justice on July 15, 2014.
Two West Bloomfield, Michigan, residents pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan today, announced the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Arkan Summa, an owner of numerous Happy’s Pizza franchises, pleaded guilty to corruptly endeavoring to obstruct or impede the due administration of the internal revenue laws. Tagrid Summa Bashi, Summa’s sister and a nominee owner, pleaded guilty to willfully delivering false documents to the IRS.
