Michigan Healthcare Management Company Owner and Operator Plead Guilty to Payroll Tax Fraud

A resident of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and a resident of Boca Raton, Florida, each pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Michigan to failing to collect, truthfully account for, and pay over payroll taxes announced Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

According to court documents, Integrated HCS Practice Management LLC (Integrated), was a Southfield, Michigan, company that provided management services to healthcare providers. As the managing partner of Integrated, a partial owner of the business, and an individual who exercised control over the business’s finances, Edward Cespedes was responsible for Integrated’s payroll taxes. Payroll taxes include federal income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes withheld from the wages paid to employees of the business. Joseph DeSanto also had influence over Integrated’s expenditure of funds, and was responsible for the payroll taxes. Despite their responsibilities, Cespedes and DeSanto failed to cause Integrated to timely pay its payroll taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the third quarter of 2013, the fourth quarter of 2013, and the first quarter of 2014. 

Joseph DeSanto also pleaded guilty to one count of failure to file his personal tax return for 2013.

Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 20, 2020. Both Cespedes and DeSanto face a maximum sentence of five years of imprisonment on the payroll tax charge, and DeSanto faces up to an additional one year of imprisonment on the charge related to his failure to file a tax return.

Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Goldberg commended special agents of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who conducted the investigation, and Tax Division Trial Attorneys Mark McDonald and William Guappone, who are prosecuting the case.