Florida man sentenced to prison for not paying over $900,000 in employment taxes

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A Florida man was sentenced to prison for failing to pay more than $900,000 in taxes that he withheld from his employees' paychecks, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Timothy Meade, of Fort Myers, will have to serve 30 months in prison, three years of supervised release and will have to pay the $971,130 he did not pay over to the IRS.

According to a news release, Meade operated a prison phone call service under multiple business names. For a decade (2011 to 2021), he withheld taxes from his employees' paychecks and failed to pay the business portion of his employees' Social Security and Medicare taxes. 

When the IRS tried to collect the tax money, he would thwart their efforts by changing the call service’s names and bank accounts.

The IRS Criminal Investigation unit investigated this case.