TULSA — An Oklahoman pleaded guilty Feb. 7 to a federal charge of willfully failing to pay employment taxes he withheld from his workers’ wages.
Donald E. White was the president and owner of Power Utility Services, a general electrical contractor in Adair, north of Pryor in Mayes County. The company was incorporated in 2002 and has 30 employees, Better Business Bureau records reflect.
From January 2010 through December 2017, White exercised control over the company’s affairs by:
Tracking hours worked by employees.
Directing the issuance of weekly paychecks to employees.
Directing the issuance of W-2 forms to employees.
Directing the filing with the IRS of Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Returns (Forms 941) that report wages paid and income and Social Security taxes withheld from employees’ wages.
Directing the payment of withheld taxes to the IRS.
White filed a Form 941 for the first quarter of 2016 but intentionally did not pay approximately $31,010 in taxes withheld from his employees’ paychecks. White also did not pay withholdings for multiple quarters during an eight-year period, between October 2009 and December 2017. In total, he admitted failing to pay the IRS $516,000.
White faces a maximum punishment of five years in federal prison, a multiyear period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties. A judge in Tulsa’s Northern District federal court will determine the sentence after considering U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.