Columbus Man Ordered to Pay Nearly $450,000 for Tax Violations

A Columbus man was ordered to pay nearly $450,000 in restitution and fines related to a tax conviction, said Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, and Kathy A. Enstrom, Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, Cincinnati Field Office.

David S. Owens aka D. Scott Owens, age 62, was ordered to pay $394,542 in restitution and fined $50,000. He was sentenced to six months of home confinement and three years of supervised released.

Owens previously pleaded guilty to one count of failure to account for an pay over employment tax.

"Business owners have a significant responsibility to collect and turn over all IRS withholding taxes,” Enstrom said.  “Those who fail to do so to gain a competitive advantage that will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Between 2008 and 2009, Owens, through his Canfield, Ohio-based company, Advetech, Inc., made payroll tax withholdings from his employees’ paychecks, but failed to pay over those withholdings to the IRS in the approximate amount of $570,000, according to court documents.

Rather, during this period, Owens transferred hundreds of thousands of Advetech, Inc. dollars to at least two other Canfield companies owned and operated by Owens, including Brixton Development Corporation and Preferred Communities, Inc., from where he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in income for himself, according to the information.

The information was filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christos N. Georgalis after an investigation by agents of the the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration.