Maui Business Owner Sentenced To 12 Months Imprisonment For Tax Evasion And Structuring

HONOLULU – United States District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi today sentenced Roger Santos, age 54, of Kahului, Maui to 12 months and 1 day imprisonment, 6 months home confinement, 3 years supervised release, 100 hours of community service and restitution to the Internal Revenue Service in the amount of $317,599.00 for one count of income tax evasion and one count of structuring. Santos pled guilty to these offenses on May 22, 2013.

Florence T. Nakakuni, United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii, said that according to documents filed in connection with the case, in 2008, Santos diverted approximately $959,883 from the checking account of the business he operated, Paradise Asian Foods, Inc., .into multiple personal checking accounts. He then reported as income only the money that was deposited into the business account. These actions fraudulently lowered his taxable income by approximately $365,267 for the 2008 tax year.

Information produced to the court also reflected that Santos deposited $30,000 in currency into multiple bank accounts on the same day in order to evade certain regulations relating to currency transactions. Under federal law, a Currency Transaction Report must be filed by a financial institution with the Internal Revenue Service in regard to any currency transaction over $10,000. It is illegal to structure transactions with financial institutions in order to avoid this filing requirement.

The charges resulted from an investigation conducted by IRS - Criminal Investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Leslie E. Osborne, Jr. handled the prosecution.