Owner of Suburban Manufacturing Company Sentenced to 9 Months and Ordered To Pay $3.3 Million on Tax Fraud

CHICAGO — The owner of a suburban Chicago manufacturing company has been sentenced to 9 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $3,329,701 in restitution to the U.S. Treasury and the Illinois Department of Revenue following his conviction for payroll tax fraud.

In June 2022, EDWARD T. ARNIERI, 71, of St. Charles pleaded guilty to a federal tax offense for withholding approximately $3.9 million dollars in employee payroll taxes and failing to remit the money to the Internal Revenue Service.  Arnieri was the president and sole owner of Lane Tool & Manufacturing Company Inc., located in South Elgin.   Payroll taxes are made up of both contributions by the employer and employee for Social Security and Medicare that are collected and remitted on a quarterly basis; as well as Federal Unemployment Taxes (FUTA) that are paid by the employer annually.  Additionally, as an employer, Arnieri was required to withhold federal income tax from employees’ wages and send those amounts to the U.S. Treasury on a quarterly basis.   For approximately eight years, Arnieri caused his company to issue Forms W-2 and paychecks to its employees which falsely reflected that the company had withheld income and payroll taxes from their wages.  Arnieri’s conduct also resulted in the filing of inaccurate individual tax returns for himself, resulting in additional tax loss of approximately $450,000. 

The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Jorge L. Alonso on September 15, 2023.

The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Justin Campbell, Special Agent-in-Charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago.  The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick J. King, Jr.