Stoneham Trash Hauler Sentenced for Tax Evasion

BOSTON – A Stoneham businessman was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Boston in connection with under-reporting more than $800,000 in gross receipts.    

Robert Sinclair, 72, owner of Sinclair Trucking in Stoneham, Mass., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns to two years of probation, the first six months of which is to be served in home confinement, and ordered to perform 250 hours of community service.  Sinclair also has agreed to pay the tax loss of $239,446 plus interest and penalties to the IRS.  In May 2016, he pleaded guilty to attempting to evade taxes.   

For many years, Sinclair owned and operated a waste management and trash hauling business in Stoneham.  Some of his larger customers reported the payments they made to Sinclair on tax return form 1099 which they submitted to the IRS and to Sinclair, while smaller customers did not report the payments they made to Sinclair on Forms 1099.   When Sinclair filed his tax returns, he generally reported only the amounts he had been paid by customers who provided Forms 1099, but not the payments from his customers who did not produce a Form 1099. 

During audits of his tax returns in 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009, IRS agents questioned Sinclair about discrepancies between the amounts he reported on his tax returns and the amounts he deposited into his business bank account.  Sinclair falsely told the agents that the discrepancies were due to cash loans from a relative, when in fact, all of the deposits into the business bank account during these tax years were checks from customers.   As a result, Sinclair evaded $239,446 in taxes.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Joel P. Garland, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation in Boston, made the announcement today.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra S. Bower of Ortiz’s Economic Crimes Unit.