Date: January 10, 2022 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Providence, RI — According to an information and plea agreement filed today in U.S. District Court in Providence, the vice president of two Providence businesses, who also acted as the business/finance manager of a trust, will plead guilty to charges that he allegedly failed to turn over to the Internal Revenue Service more than one million dollars in federal payroll taxes, including Medicare, and Social Security taxes withheld from employees' paychecks. It is alleged in charging documents that Mark Carlson, as Vice President of American Pride Insulation and of Atlantic Abatement Construction, and a manager of finances for the Leo Byrnes Trust, failed his responsibility to collect, truthfully account for, and turn over payroll taxes from the three entities. Carlson is charged by way of an information with 14 counts of failure to truthfully account for and pay over withholding and FICA taxes and one count of filing a false tax return. Court documents allege that, throughout calendar years 2015 through 2018, the three entities withheld taxes from their employees' paychecks, but Carlson failed to file the appropriate IRS documents, failed to truthfully account for, and failed to turn over to the IRS the federal payroll taxes withheld and FICA taxes due to the United States on behalf of the businesses and their employees. In total, Carlson is alleged to have failed to turnover $1,086,816.50. Court documents also allege that Carlson created 2018 W2s from American Pride and the Leo Byrnes Trust that falsely represented that a total of $8,946 dollars had been withheld in employment taxes on his behalf and paid over to the IRS, when in fact no money had been paid to the IRS. In May 2019, Carlson allegedly filed an individual tax return falsely stating that $8,946 had been paid to the IRS on his behalf. An information is merely an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dulce Donovan. The matter was investigated by of Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation.
