Date: March 27, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov LOS ANGELES — A Diamond Bar man was sentenced today to 24 months in federal prison for deliberately failing to pay more than $200,000 for one three-month period's payroll taxes owed by his San Gabriel Valley employment staffing company. Robinson Rin Yang, a.k.a. "Robert Mora," a.k.a. "David Lee," was sentenced by United States District Judge George H. Wu, who also ordered Yang to pay $2,791,783 in restitution. Yang pleaded guilty in December 2022 to one count of willful failure to pay over employment taxes. From March 2016 to March 2020, Yang operated B&S Staffing, a Covina-based staffing service business. From mid-2017 until the end of 2019, B&S accrued large unpaid employment tax liabilities, failed to make timely employment tax deposits, and repeatedly failed to timely file quarterly employment tax returns with the IRS. Notably, B&S did not file – until February 2019 – employment tax returns for the periods ending June 30, 2017 through December 31, 2018. After these tax returns were filed, B&S again fell into non-compliance with its reporting obligations. B&S did not file – until September 2020 – employment tax returns for the quarterly tax periods ending March 31, 2019, through December 31, 2019. Yang was aware of B&S's tax situation, but willfully failed to pay over to the IRS all the employment taxes due and owing, including income taxes and Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld from employee wages. Instead, Yang repeatedly used his control over B&S to direct payments from the corporate bank account, which he controlled, for his personal benefit. For example, in July 2018, for the quarterly tax period ending on June 30, 2018, Yang willfully failed to account for and pay over approximately $221,108 in B&S payroll taxes. In total, B&S accrued approximately $2,791,783 in unpaid employment taxes during this 2½-year period. Yang has agreed to pay this amount in restitution to the IRS. Also, from 2017 to 2019, to frustrate IRS collection actions against him regarding his personal income taxes – and to conceal the true extent of how much money he made – Yang did not pay himself a salary from B&S. Instead, Yang caused weekly checks to be issued from B&S's corporate bank account to a business named "Advanced Business Konsulting," and deposited these checks into an account held in the same name and which he controlled. In addition, Yang used B&S funds for the down payment and monthly mortgage payments on his purchase of a home, but kept the property titled in the name of another person to conceal Yang's ownership of the property. Yang also directed payments from the corporate bank accounts of B&S to pay for personal expenses, including a portion of his daughter's college tuition, and funding for Yang's other business interests, including a failed construction business and a failed restaurant. Despite the fact Yang earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from his operation of B&S during each of the calendar years 2017 through 2019, he failed to timely file federal income tax returns for those years. "Under [Yang's] management, B&S engaged in a long running pattern of failing to pay federal employment taxes and timely file federal employment tax returns," prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. "Despite knowing of the company's expanding tax debts, [Yang] repeatedly used his control over B&S to direct payments from the corporate bank account for his personal benefit and for the payment of other expenses." IRS Criminal Investigation investigated this matter. Assistant United States Attorney James C. Hughes of the Major Frauds Section prosecuted this case.
