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Press Release

Paving Company Owner Sentenced for Tax Fraud

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts

BOSTON – The owner of a Chelmsford paving company was sentenced today for a payroll tax scheme resulting in a $300,000 tax loss.  

Robert W. Joyce, 59, of Carlisle, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to six months in prison, one year of supervised release and ordered to pay a $40,000 fine. In June 2020, Joyce pleaded to one count of willful failure to collect and pay over taxes.

For tax years 2012 through at least 2014, Joyce paid a portion of the wages to employees of his two companies, Allied Paving and Allied Equipment, “under the table.” He did so by paying them from his own personal bank account, rather than through the business accounts. In doing so, Joyce did not collect, account for, or pay the IRS the income withholding and FICA taxes that he, as the employer, was required to. Joyce also caused Allied Paving and Allied Equipment to file false returns with the IRS which underreported the actual wages he paid his employees, as well as the employment taxes due to the IRS. In total, Joyce caused a loss to the IRS of at least $331,060.

United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling and Joleen Simpson, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom of Lelling’s Securities, Financial & Cybercrime Unit prosecuted the case.

Updated November 16, 2020

Topic
Tax