Press Release
Harrisburg Woman Sentenced To Six Months For Failing To Collect And Pay Employment Taxes
For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG - The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Dary T. Son, age 37, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to six months in prison for failing to collect and pay over employment taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.
According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, from June 2015 through August 2019, Son, the owner of Pennsylvania-based temporary staffing company DS Agency, failed to collect and pay on behalf of her employees approximately $591,822.99 in taxes owed to the IRS. She also failed to pay to the IRS an equivalent amount that she owed as their employer.
Dary Son is the younger sister of Vanny Son. Vanny Son was previously prosecuted by this Office for conspiracy to defraud the United States through the evasion of employment taxes for his temporary employment agencies for tax years 2007 through 2012. Before Vanny Son reported to prison in 2015, his wife took over the operation of his employment agency, Son Associates. They later divorced in 2017.
Beginning in 2015, Son Associates began, on paper, subcontracting its labor leasing business to other companies controlled by family members of Vanny Son and his then wife, including DS Agency, LLC, of which Dary Son was the sole member and responsible person for purposes of the IRS.
From 2015 to 2019, DS Agency received and cashed checks from Son Associates for providing workers in the total amount of over $7.7 million. Rather than depositing these payments in a bank account, Dary Son cashed these checks at a check cashing business in Harrisburg, PA from 2015 to mid-2017. Starting in 2018, Vanny Son’s now ex-wife and Dary Son regularly made trips to a check cashing business in Philadelphia, PA, where Dary Son cashed about $3 million in checks in less than a year.
The workers employed by Dary Son and her family member’s companies worked regularly at several food manufacturing facilities in and around the Middle District of Pennsylvania. A number of them were transported to their work sites by Dary Son, and they were generally paid in cash by Vanny Son’s ex-wife. The ex-wife passed away in 2021 when the investigation remained ongoing and before any charges were filed in this case.
Dary Son never withheld any federal, Social Security, Medicare, or state taxes from her employees’ income. She likewise did not pay her employer portion of these taxes. As a result, she was responsible for $1,183,646.25 in unpaid federal taxes. Son was ordered to pay this amount in restitution to the IRS.
The case was investigated by the IRS Criminal Investigations Division. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ravi Romel Sharma prosecuted the case.
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Updated July 12, 2023
Topic
Tax
Component