Accounting Firm Owner Sentenced for Not Remitting Payroll Taxes to IRS

The majority owner of an accounting firm in Montvale, N.J., was sentenced Wednesday to six months in prison and six months of home confinement for failing to pay the IRS taxes that the firm withheld from its employees’ wages.

Barry S. Malkin, 69, of Upper Saddle River, N.J., previously pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Patty Shwartz to a criminal Information charging him with failing to truthfully account for and pay over taxes withheld by his accounting firm, Malkin, Coppock & Company.

U.S. District Judge Faith S. Hochberg imposed the sentence Wednesday in Newark federal court.

In addition to being the majority owner of MCC, Malkin was a CPA who provided tax accounting services to the firm’s clients, including the preparation of individual and corporate tax returns. Malkin was responsible for withholding federal income and FICA taxes from the wages of the employees of MCC and paying those taxes over to the IRS.

Malkin admitted that although the taxes were withheld from 2001 through 2008, he did not file any payroll tax returns or pay any of the withheld taxes over to the IRS, failing to pay over $137,000 in payroll taxes.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Hochberg sentenced Malkin to two years of supervised release and ordered him to pay what was owed to the IRS.

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