Business owners can not escape liability for the firm’s unpaid payroll taxes,
even though they didn’t know about the shortfall, an Appeals Court says.
The bookkeeper for a business failed to deposit the company’s employment taxes.
The owners first learned about her embezzlement when the IRS came knocking.
During the next few months, they paid employees and creditors over $5 million,
but nothing to IRS to reduce their tax debt. That decision not to pay the Service
makes them liable for the undeposited taxes, in the Court’s view.
(Oppliger, 8th Cir.)