{"id":21245,"date":"2014-10-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/irs-steps-criminal-charges-payroll-tax-evaders\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T14:51:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T14:51:46","slug":"irs-steps-criminal-charges-payroll-tax-evaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/irs-steps-criminal-charges-payroll-tax-evaders\/","title":{"rendered":"IRS Steps Up Criminal Charges Against Payroll Tax Evaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most people I talk to about their IRS problem have already built the worst-case scenario in their head. The reality is usually much more manageable. I&#039;m Darrin Mish, and I&#039;ve been representing taxpayers before the IRS for 32 years. Here&#039;s what actually tends to happen.<\/p>\n<p>The new improved IRS is actively seeking convictions against taxpayers guilty of <a href=\"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/irs-will-collect-unpaid-payroll-taxes-years-later\/\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"1873\">payroll tax<\/a> violations. Recently, the IRS has criminally charged and convicted a growing number of business owners for stealing payroll taxes.<\/p>\n<p>Business owners are required to withhold payroll taxes from employee\u2019s wages and they have a fiduciary responsibility to pay the amounts withheld over to the IRS. The IRS takes a hard look at any business, which gets behind in paying payroll taxes or fails to pay the payroll taxes.<\/p>\n<p>Some business owners may at least have a semi-reasonable excuse for not paying the <a href=\"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/happens-business-cant-pay-employee-taxes\/\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"1851\">payroll<\/a> taxes over to the IRS when they are due. <a href=\"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/tag\/bankruptcy-and-taxes\/\">These excuses could include a catastrophic event, medical emergency, employee theft, large customer bankruptcy, or other unusual circumstances. <\/a>The IRS is not actively looking to criminally prosecute business owners who get behind on their payroll taxes for reason such as these.<\/p>\n<p>The IRS is looking for business owners who knowingly spend the payroll taxes they withhold from their employees on other business expenses or on themselves. The IRS is also looking for business owners who don\u2019t pay their payroll taxes and then close the business and open another business and do the same thing.<\/p>\n<p>The Criminal Division of the IRS recently reported that is has been successful in jailing 127 business owners for criminal payroll tax violations. They also reported that the average sentence for these convicted business owners was 17 months.<\/p>\n<p>Any business owners who find themselves behind in paying their payroll taxes should consider this new hard line being taken by the IRS Criminal Division. Business owners who take action to remedy these situations before IRS agents show up at the business door will always be in better shape to save their business and their personal freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the simple solution to solving any payroll tax problem is to pay the IRS the amount owed immediately. Unfortunately, not all business owners have the money to do this. In those situations, the business owner must at the very least start paying what they owe for the current month and create a plan to repay the old payroll taxes. I\u2019ve written a special report on how to best end payroll tax problems and I\u2019ll be happy to give you a free copy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Caution!<\/strong> Often business owners faced with a payroll tax problem freeze like a deer in headlights and do nothing. This is the worst thing you can do! Instead, acknowledge you have a serious payroll problem and immediately start moving forward to solve it. Do not wait for an IRS agent to stick a badge in your face to wake you up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most people I talk to about their IRS problem have already built the worst-case scenario in their head. The reality is usually much more manageable. I&#039;m Darrin Mish, and I&#039;ve been representing taxpayers before the IRS for 32 years. Here&#039;s what actually tends to happen. The new improved IRS is actively seeking convictions against taxpayers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[591],"tags":[600],"class_list":["post-21245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irs-news","tag-bankruptcy-and-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21245"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28277,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21245\/revisions\/28277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}