Date: December 6, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Des Moines, IA — A Bondurant man was sentenced today to 15 months in federal prison for failure to pay over employee trust fund taxes and failure to file a federal tax return. According to court documents, from 2015 to 2020, Thomas James Morford operated a local concrete business, failed to pay $355,049 in employment taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This included the failure to pay taxes that he had collected from employees through withholding, as well as matching employer contributions to Social Security and Medicare. Morford also failed to file federal tax returns for 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020. After completing his term of imprisonment, Morford will be required to serve three years of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system. Morford was also ordered to pay $355,049.68 in restitution to the IRS. "Withholding employment taxes from employee wages and willfully failing to remit them to the IRS is a serious offense," said IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) Special Agent in Charge Thomas F. Murdock. "Not only does this harm employees, but it also robs the Treasury of funds and that has the potential to harm all those who rely on support from government programs." United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division. 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.
