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Employee leasing exec gets prison in payroll tax case

July 19, 2013

A former owner of Alliance Staffing Management Inc., an employee leasing company, was sentenced in Salt Lake City to 51 months in prison for willfully failing to account for and pay employment taxes, the U.S. Justice Department and the IRS announced. The former owner, Richard Whatley, was also ordered to pay $541,513 in restitution to the IRS.

A federal grand jury in January 2010 charged Whatley with five counts of willfully failing to account for and pay over employment taxes, relating to three different employee leasing companies that he allegedly operated and controlled between 2001 and 2006: American Employment Group Inc., ASM and Intermountain Consulting Group Inc.

The tax loss associated with Whatley’s criminal conduct during these years totaled more than $2.3 million. Whatley pleaded guilty in January 2013 to one of the charged counts, according to the Department of Justice.

According to the plea agreement, during the 2002 through 2004 tax years, Whatley had an ownership interest in Alliance Staffing Management and had the ability to control the finances. In the fourth tax quarter of 2003, the company collected taxes from employee wages but failed to pay more than $541,513 in employment taxes to the IRS.