Jacksonville father-son builders jailed for $5 million payroll tax scam with illegal workers
Father-and-son owners of Jacksonville construction businesses are facing federal prison time for dodging about $5.6 million in payroll taxes their companies owed, largely for wages of immigrants working illegally.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard sentenced Raul Solis to 33 months behind bars and Raul Solis-Martinez to 21 months after the pair pled guilty to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and employ immigrants who weren’t allowed to hold jobs.
The men owned and operated Solis Brothers Company LLC and Duval Framing LLC, both companies that other businesses subcontracted for work on building projects.
Plea agreements the men reached last year said they knew a lot of their employees couldn’t work legally in the United States.
They made some payments in cash that was “off the books” and paid the rest in checks that understated workers’ real wages and led to less money being spent on Social Security and Medicare contributions that workers and employers both pay into through payroll taxes.
About $22.2 million from the companies’ payroll went unreported to the IRS between 2014 and 2019, the U.S. Justice Department said in a release after the sentencing this week.
“This father and son criminal team profited financially by perpetrating fraud against the United States and private industry, while taking advantage of the country’s workforce,” K. Jim Phillips, assistant special agent in charge of homeland security investigations at the Jacksonville office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The cash payments also helped the companies lower their premiums for worker’s compensation insurance and contracted payroll services that businesses pay for based on their payroll.
“In this instance, greed drove the defendants to cheat their competitors and steal from both their employees and the American public,” Ronald A. Loecker, acting IRS special agent in charge of criminal investigations in the Tampa area, said in a statement. He said the sentencing “demonstrates that you can’t expect integrity and loyalty from an employer who would do anything for money.”
Solis, 52, founded Solis Brothers in 2006 and had entrusted his son, now 33, to work on tasks including payroll since 2014, according to court records.
The men had faced a potential maximum sentence of five years in prison.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Payroll fraud with illegal crews puts Jacksonville builders in prison
