Date: October 12, 2022 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov KANSAS CITY, MO — A Lafayette County, Mo., business owner was sentenced in federal court today for failing to pay over nearly $2 million in payroll and employment taxes over a four-year period. Sandra Eller, of Napoleon, Mo., was sentenced by U.S. Chief District Judge Beth Phillips to 18 months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Eller to pay $1,643,200 in restitution to the IRS and $186,844 in restitution to the Missouri Department of Revenue. On April 7, 2022, Eller pleaded guilty to one count of failure to truthfully account for and pay over to the IRS the federal income taxes and payroll taxes withheld and owing to the government. Eller has owned three different medical billing and claims processing companies that operated in Oak Grove, Mo., and Grain Valley, Mo. Medical Revenue Solutions, LLC, had about 20 employees and operated until 2017. Claims Professionally Reviewed, LLC, had about 50 employees and operated until 2016. These companies merged into Soerries Coding and Billing Institute, Inc., which operated from 2016 through 2019. Eller was the president and chief executive officer of Soerries Coding and Billing Institute. Eller admitted that she willfully failed to deposit the Federal Insurance Contributions Act and Medicare (FICA) taxes and income taxes that were withheld from her employees' wages. Eller also admitted that she did not pay the employer portion of FICA. Eller withheld the FICA taxes and income taxes, totaling $939,294, on 18 occasions from the first quarter of 2016 through the fourth quarter of 2019. Eller withheld payroll taxes from her employees' paychecks; however, instead of forwarding those taxes to the government, she kept them for her business. In addition, Eller owed the employer's portion of the FICA taxes, unpaid federal unemployment taxes, employment tax due for the third quarter of 2019, and state tax withholdings that were not paid over, all of which total $1,051,679. In total, Eller's criminal conduct resulted in a tax loss of $1,990,973. This case was prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley Cooper. It was investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation.
