An Ogden man is sentenced to a year in prison for tax crimes. Photo: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY — An Ogden man has been sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for willfully failing to pay trust fund taxes to the IRS in relation to his four healthcare businesses.
Daniel Fry, 46, owned and ran four now-closed healthcare-related businesses in the Ogden area. This includes Burch Creek Homecare and Hospice LLC, which closed in 2015, Scrub World, which closed in 2018, and Medical Billing Advantage LLC and Country Niche LLC, both of which closed in 2020.
“Failure to pay taxes is a serious crime,” said United States Attorney Andrea T. Martinez in a press release. “This case is proof that we will hold business owners accountable if they violate their duty to pay employment taxes to the United States Government.”
Fry was in charge of handling the businesses’ payrolls. According to the press release this included issuing employee paychecks and withholding Federal Insurance Contribution Act employment (FICA) taxes.
The Internal Revenue Service required Fry to account for, collect, and pay trust fund taxes on a quarterly basis. Additionally, Fry was responsible for paying the employer portion of the trust fund taxes to the IRS.
From January 2013 to December 2016, Fry withheld funds from employee paychecks while collecting his businesses’ trust fund taxes, as required. He also reported tax withholdings of his businesses to the IRS. However, he failed to pay the trust fund taxes owed to the IRS. He further failed to pay the employer portion of the trust fund taxes.
In total, he owed and failed to pay $568,590 to the IRS.
Albert Childress, Special Agent in Charge, IRS-Criminal Investigation, said that Fry’s case demonstrates the toll that willful violation of tax laws takes on the average taxpayer.
“Mr. Fry’s actions hurt the taxpayers from whom he took withholdings but never paid over,” Childress said in a press release.
“He also harmed competing businesses who followed the law. The mission of IRS-Criminal Investigation is to enforce the tax laws of this country [and] to instill confidence in and maintain a fair tax system for all.”