Donald Benck, 57, of Imperial pleaded guilty to hiding more than $300,000 in sales commission payments from the Internal Revenue Service. He received the payments while working for B&B Auto Sales in Imperial.
Benck pleaded guilty Aug. 8 to three counts of filing false income tax return forms from 2014 through 2016. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 18 in front of U.S. District Judge Audrey G. Fleissig in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced.
Benck faces up to three years in prison and a possible fine of up to $100,000, the report said.
According to his plea agreement, Benck recruited friends to receive and cash commission checks totaling $326,000. After cashing the checks, the friends would return most of the money to him while keeping a small fee for themselves.
By hiding the money he earned through commission checks, Benck failed to report $31,300 in income for tax year 2014, $131,400 in 2015 and $93,035 in 2016. In all, Benck kept $255,735 from the three-years’ worth of commission checks that he failed to report to the IRS, and his friends kept $70,265.
The false tax filings caused the IRS to lose $84,092, the agreement said.
“Our tax system depends on everyone paying their fair share of taxes based on the filing of accurate tax returns,” said Tyler Hatcher, special agent in charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation’s St. Louis Field Office in a statement. “Dishonest tax filers leave honest taxpayers to pick up the tab for their schemes.”
The IRS investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gwendolyn Carroll is prosecuting the case.