Business owner gets 8 months for tax fraud
An Aiea man was sentenced this week to eight months in prison for failing to report income he made from reselling salvaged or used cars.
Jesus Gomez Torres, 47, had pleaded guilty in November to two counts of filing false federal income tax forms for calendar years 2000 and 2001. He is sole owner and operator of Hawaii Auto Wholesale.
His wife, Esmelita Torres, 42, was sentenced in November to four months in federal prison for a misdemeanor charge of failure to file federal income taxes for calendar year 2001.
According to a plea agreement, Jesus Torres reported no business income on his 2000 and 2001 federal returns when in fact he had omitted a substantial amount of gross receipts, according to U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo.
Hawaii Auto Wholesale purchased used or salvaged autos and registered them under Torres' his wife's or a nominee's name. He also used 40 different names and 16 bogus addresses to register the cars.
He sold the cars, requesting checks or cash, and deposited the proceeds into three different bank accounts. In a ledger he maintained from 1996 to 2002, Torres recorded when he purchased a car and for how much. He also recorded when the car was resold, expenses he incurred and how much profit he made, federal prosecutors said.
Under the plea agreement, Torres agreed that the tax loss attributed to him for calendar years 1999 to 2001 was $136,146.
Esmelita Torres' plea agreement requires her to pay the back taxes, interest and penalties and to file all past-due tax returns. She agreed that the tax loss for calendar years 1999 to 2001 was $51, 834.
The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division.