Employers Must Pay Payroll Taxes

A Lake County man has been sentenced to federal prison for not paying required employment taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. Michael Roberts, a 38-year-old Mentor resident, was sentenced Dec. 3 to 24 months in prison by U.S. District Judge John R. Adams, after a federal jury convicted him in April of failure to account for and pay taxes, according to a news release. He was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $322,718.56 in restitution. According to court documents, Roberts was the executive director and co-owner of Progressive Alternatives, an in-home care business that served individuals with developmental disabilities throughout Lake and Ashtabula counties. The business was initially purchased by Roberts’ spouse, Larry Keith Gildersleeve III, 43, also of Mentor, in 2011. Federal investigators found that the payroll checks that Roberts issued did reflect the correct withholdings from employees’ wages. The withholdings were also reflected on W-2 forms that the employees received. But upon further investigation, it was discovered that the business never filed W-2 forms for employees, nor did they submit quarterly payments. When an employee was preparing to retire in 2017, she learned that Progressive Alternatives had not paid the required payroll taxes  to the IRS. Gildersleeve was previously sentenced to 24 months in prison for his role, after pleading guilty to eight counts of failure to account for and pay over taxes, the release stated. He was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $692,697.50 in restitution. The IRS-Criminal Investigation Division investigated this case.