A Florida resident has pleaded guilty to evading $400,000 in taxes in a case brought by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
According to the documentation presented by the Justice Department’s Tax Division, Christopher Garraty has defrauded the IRS for approximately $413,879 from 2002 until 2018.
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy for the District of Massachusetts announced the defendant’s guilty tax plea.
Florida man defrauds the IRS for more than a decade
The guilty plea followed the news that Garraty did not file taxes for the years 2002 to 2011 until 2012. He disclosed that he should have paid taxes for those nine years but failed to do so, totaling $234,497.
Furthermore, despite his lucrative salary ($600,000) he failed to file tax returns for the period between 2015 to 2018. The amount he owed for that time is presumed to be $179,382 in taxes.
Garraty had been working in those years as a fisherman out of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
The Justice Department statement said that Garraty hid his financial activity by flying under the bank’s radar. He did so by cashing his paychecks at the issuing bank and then drip-feeding the money into his account in smaller sums.
“When his paycheck was over $10,000, Garraty frequently cashed the paycheck at the issuing bank and then immediately made multiple cash deposits of less than $10,000 into his bank account to avoid triggering the bank’s reporting requirements. He used the cash to fund his lifestyle to further conceal his financial activity,” said the Justice Department on his activity.
For his actions, Garraty now faces the possibility of up to five years in jail for avoiding federal taxes. His sentencing is scheduled for September 17 this year, and the severity of the penalty will be at the discretion of a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Image: Ideogram.
