A New York businessman pleaded guilty to willful failure to pay the payroll taxes of his company.
According to court records, Thomas Nastasi III, 46, of Mt. Kisco, New York, from 2001 through 2011, owned and operated several Manhattan construction and maintenance companies, including Nastasi Maintenance & Construction.
As the president of the companies, Nastasi was responsible for withholding payroll taxes from his employees and paying them over to the IRS. Those taxes included the employees’ income taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes.
Nastasi accumulated more than $1.7 million in payroll taxes that were owed but never paid to the IRS. Those taxes included the employer’s portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes for his employees.
Instead of paying the companies’ payroll taxes to the IRS, Nastasi used company funds to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses, for items including boat-related expenses and cigars. Nastasi also made false statements to the IRS in the course of its attempts to obtain delinquent tax returns and collect the corporate and personal taxes owed by Nastasi and his companies.
