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Press Release

Owner of St. Paul Staffing Agency Sentenced to Prison for $1 Million Tax Fraud

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

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A Woodbury woman was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay $1,019,572.12 in restitution to the IRS for filing false federal income tax returns, announced United States Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

According to court documents, during tax years 2017 through 2018, Shoua Isabelle Yang, 45, the owner and operator of Atwork Staffing Inc., a staffing agency that provided temporary workers for multiple business clients, caused the agency not to properly withhold, account for, and pay over accurate payroll taxes, including federal income taxes and Social Security and Medicare taxes. Yang caused quarterly IRS Forms 941 to be completed and filed that were willfully and deliberately false, in that they did not report all employees employed by Atwork Staffing and did not report all payroll taxes owed by Atwork Staffing. Yang also caused Atwork Staffing to pay a portion of its employees’ salaries in cash and not report the true payroll on the Forms 941 filed on behalf of Atwork Staffing. Yang also filed IRS Forms 1120 corporate tax returns that were false in that they underreported her agency’s gross receipts as well as the true amount of payroll expenses for the wages paid to her employees. Yang’s tax fraud resulted in a total tax loss of $1,019,572.12.

On November 10, 2021, Yang pleaded guilty to two counts of filing a false federal income tax return. Yang was sentenced earlier today by U.S. District Judge Eric C. Tostrud.

This case is the result of an investigation by IRS Criminal Investigation Division.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew S. Ebert.

Updated May 5, 2022

Topic
Tax