South Texas company owner pleads guilty to withholding payroll taxes for personal use
A South Texas business owner admitted on April 30 to failing to pay employment taxes at his local business, U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei announced.
Timothy Gaines Pollard, of McCoy, Texas, owned and operated Tim Pollard Construction, a residential remodeling and fence installation business in Bishop and Kingsville, according to an indictment filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas on March 27, 2024.
Pollard pleaded guilty to failing to collect, withhold or pay employment taxes from his employees' paychecks from 2018 to 2022, including federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes.
A stipulation of fact filed with the court said that he withheld money from his employees during that period but failed to pay it to the United States, as the law requires, and spent the funds on personal expenses instead.
Specifically, during the fourth quarter of 2019, he did not pay to the IRS payroll more than $36,700 in taxes that he had collected from employees.
An IRS agent spoke with Pollard in November 2018 and put him on a notice of obligation to pay payroll taxes, court documents showed.
During that conversation, Pollard acknowledged that he was responsible for paying taxes to the IRS and agreed to stay current with his payments.
While the company withheld the appropriate amount of payroll taxes from employees' paychecks from 2018 through 2021, it failed to fully pay out the withheld payroll taxes to the IRS, which were due every quarter during that period.
Beginning in January 2019, Pollard made no further quarterly payments of payroll taxes to the IRS and did not file employment tax returns with the IRS, the documents showed.
In total, Pollard failed to account for more than $421,000 in total taxes, according to the court records.
U.S. District Judge David S. Morales will impose sentencing on July 30.
Pollard faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 maximum fine or both penalties, and could receive up to three years of supervised release after imprisonment.
He was permitted to remain on bond pending that hearing.
More: Texas court vacates Corpus Christi man's 2004 murder conviction, citing false evidence
More: In Texas, private firms cash in on property tax late fees, piling debt onto homeowners
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Federal court convicts South Texas man who didn't pay employment taxes
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