Payroll Tax Fraud Indictment - Wisconsin Man Faces Charges and 92 Years In Prison! Ouch!

Daniel D. LaMarch, if convicted, may well spend the rest of his life in prison. The thoughts of dying in prison have to be daunting and LaMarch is facing just that.

A federal grand jury handed down a 20 count indictment against LaMarch for failing to pay over to the Internal Revenue Service payroll taxes that had been withheld from the wages of the employees of Title Services of Green Bay during the period from January 2002 through December 2005. The indictment alleges that during this four-year
period, LaMarch withheld from the wages of the employees of Title Services of Green Bay more than $500,000 in payroll taxes, but that he failed to pay those funds to the IRS, as required by federal law, or to file the quarterly payroll tax returns (Forms 941) that he was required to file reporting the wages, and payroll tax withholdings.

Now, if that’s not bad enough, LaMarch was also indicted on charges of filing false personal tax returns (Form 1040) for he and his wife from 2002 through 2005. According to the indictment, on these returns, LaMarch under reported his income during these four years by more than $500,000 and the he under reported and
under paid his federal taxes by more than $115,000.

Every choice has a consequence. It should be evident by now, regardless of your opinion of the fairness of our tax system, that one cannot avoid filing and paying taxes. Wesley Snipes tried and lost. Sure he was not convicted of fraud, but he was convicted of failing to file and awaits his sentence - which could include prison.

Based on these charges, LaMarch faces up to 92 years in prison and fines of up to $5 million dollars if convicted on all counts.

As a business ethics and white collar crime speaker, (www.chuckgallagher.com) I routinely speak to business groups and associations about the Truth About Consequences. It is true…you reap what you sow. In this case, regardless of the motivation, the reality is Daniel D. LaMarch will likely spend many year in federal prison. He will have time to evaluate whether the temporary benefits he might have enjoyed was worth the ultimate costs. Having been there…I can speak from experience. It is not!

Your comments?

Facebook, Social Networking and Bill Gates - Is it Worth It? Gates Says ‘No’!

In the business technology section of the Wall Street Journal blog, Ben Worthen posted a blog about Bill Gates - Microsoft’s Chairman - stopping his use of his Facebook account. The question is - what message does that send? The WSJ Blog is linked here.

Review: Beyond the obvious issue, receiving a lot of press, related to teens - children and predators - the larger question is adult usage and consequences that might follow. Computerworld posted a great article on The Pitfalls of Social Networking.

The summary is listed below:

• Too much Bandwidth usage. Downloading and storing these files can cripple your infrastructure and make capacity planning virtually impossible.
• Potential Legal Liability. Should employees use corporate IT resources for purposes of posting dissatisfaction with others, the company could be held responsible in any ensuing litigation.
• Exposure to Malware. These networks are potential vehicles for introducing viruses, worms and spyware.
• Decreased Employee Productivity. Even when networking is used for business purposes, corporations may want to limit the number of networks employees use. Monitoring many networks can become incredibly time-consuming. Moreover, interfaces among current networks don’t support robust information-sharing.
• Disclosure of Personal Information. Companies regularly search MySpace, Classmates.com, LinkedIn and other social networking sites to glean information about potential hires and competitors.
• Risk of Leaking Corporate Secrets. Companies often sanction social networking for the purpose of exchanging professional information. But take great care to protect corporate secrets. Definitions of secret may vary or be misunderstood, and critical information may inadvertently be revealed.
• Limited Executive Use. Executive use of social networking is not widespread, however. Many executives already have substantial personal networks and rely less on new technological platforms for interaction.

According the WSJ blog - “Workers who created profiles on Facebook are horrified to find out they can’t be erased, the New York Times reports. Even if you deactivate your account, Facebook still keeps a copy of all the information you ever posted. And, the Times reports, it’s still possible to contact people through deleted Facebook pages.”

So What’s the Bill Gates Angle? According an article in The Sun:

The computer mogul got so hooked on the social networking site that he splashed out £120million on a 1.6 per cent stake in it last year.

Bill, 52, spent 30 minutes daily catching up with pals.

But he signed off after getting more than 8,000 friend requests a DAY, and spotted weird fan sites about him.

A colleague said: “Sadly the attention does mean Bill has had to close the account which got him so hooked in the first place.”

As a business ethics and teen ethics speaker, (www.chuckgallagher.com), I routinely talk with parents about the pitfalls and dangers of social networking through MySpace - Facebook, etc. While I think social networking is the way of the future, especially among young people, it is important for parents to understand the dynamic change when it comes to child - teen safety. Likewise, it is critical for business people to better understand the issues that come with security and corporate ethics and responsibility.

Have you had an experience with social networking that you’d want to share?

Should parents know more about MySpace and Facebook?

What pitfalls do you see for employees involved in Facebook or MySpace?

Comments are welcome!

Working and Ethics in America

From a recent blog I read I share the following and ask you to comment on your perception of “work ethics”:

I recently read a newspaper article on attitudes towards work.

America: The more you worked, the more you billed, and more the profit you generated for yourself and your company.

France: The fewer hours you work, the more vacation you take, more the time you get to grumble about the state of the universe, and smarter you feel.

Australia: On Mondays, they would talk on how they enjoyed the just-ended weekend; on Thursdays, the talk would be on what one would do on the coming weekend; on Friday afternoons they would not be any talk as they are already driving off to the nearest beach or hill ranges.

Urban India: When I meet software professionals, I see that the talk is like as in America – billings and profits. While attitudes of work are seen in some other areas of businesses, most others exude a chalta hai attitude; anything will do; performance and good work be damned !

The question for this blog is not about other countries, but more about what you think.

• What does “work ethics” mean to you?
• Is it more “ethically” sound to achieve your personal goals or to achieve the goals of the employer?
• Is it possible to meet both?
• Has the strong focus on business performance in America helped or hurt our country?

Feel free to respond- the commentary should be interesting!