Date: January 9, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Harry T. Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) in New England, today announced that Anthony Niro and Nanette Niro of Newington, have pleaded guilty in Hartford federal court to offenses stemming from a tax evasion scheme. According to court documents and statements made in court, Anthony Niro was a co-owner of A. Niro Landscape Contractors, Inc. ("ANLC"), a business that provided landscaping and snowplowing services for large commercial properties and for personal residences. Nanette Niro, who is married to Anthony Niro, was the bookkeeper for ANLC and maintained ANLC's financial records. For the 2006 through 2010 tax years, Anthony Niro, his business partner, and Nanette Niro conspired to evade both corporate and individual income tax by causing a large portion of ANLC's receipts to be deposited into two non-interest-bearing checking accounts, and then transferred money out the accounts to themselves for their benefit. Anthony Niro, his business partner, and Nanette Niro failed to provide information about these non-interest-bearing accounts to the tax return preparer who prepared ANLC's federal income tax returns. The 2006 through 2009 tax returns were filed with the IRS. A 2010 tax return was not filed. Through this scheme, nearly $14 million in ANLC's gross receipts were not reported to the IRS for the 2006 through 2010 tax years, resulting in a tax loss of $2,931,011. Anthony Niro and his ANLC business partner also owned numerous residential and commercial properties through several entities. They earned rental income through some of the properties, and some of that income was also not reported to the IRS. For the 2006 through 2010 tax years, Anthony and Nanette Niro failed to report to the IRS $8,022,644.90 in income, resulting in a tax loss of $1,472,735. As an example, on their 2009 federal individual tax return, Anthony and Nanette Niro reported taxable income of $131,895 when their correct taxable income for that year was $1,891,955. On January 4, 2024, Anthony Niro pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion. Nanette Niro pleaded guilty to the same charge today. At sentencing, they each face a maximum term of imprisonment of five years. Anthony and Nanette Niro have paid restitution of $1,472,735. They are still required to pay substantial financial penalties and interest. This investigation is being conducted by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI). The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher W. Schmeisser. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
