Two owners of a Norcross drywall contractor have been sentenced to prison time and a $75,000 fine for submitting falsified payroll forms to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Cesar Arbelaez Tabares, 37, of Pembroke Pines, Florida, and Juan Carlos Bazantes, 45, of Miami, were each sentenced this week to eight years in prison and a $75,000 fine. They were found guilty of one count of conspiracy and six counts of submitting false certified payroll forms in September, and acquitted of tax charges.
Tabares and Bazantes operated Norcross-based IWES Contractors, which had a contract for a construction project at the CDC in Atlanta. They did not withhold employment taxes from wages as required, according to Derrick L. Jackson, Special Agent in Charge for the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
IWES maintained a “double payroll system” for employees working on the CDC project. One of the systems listed employee documents with the file name “W2.REAL” and the other listed the documents under “W2.F.2CHK.” Workers with information in the “W2.REAL” system received one paycheck per pay period, had their employment taxes withheld, received a W-2 at the end of the year and were reported on IWES’ quarterly employment taxes, according to the Justice Department.
Workers with information in the “W2.F.CHK” system received two paychecks per pay period: one with employment taxes withheld from the wages they earned, and another with the amount of money that was withheld from the first check, according to the Justice Department. The two checks allowed the worker to be paid their gross wages with no taxes taken out, according to the Justice Department. These workers also did not receive W-2 forms and were not reported on quarterly employment taxes.
“The jury’s verdict and the court’s sentence in this case reinforce that if you want to compete and obtain a federal contract work, you must abide by the law and truthfully report your payroll and employment tax withholdings,” U.S. Attorney BJay Pak said in a release.
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