BOSTON (WWLP) – A Melrose man pleaded guilty on Friday to a decade-long tax fraud scheme in which he failed to pay employment taxes that he had withheld from employees of two of his businesses.
According to the Department of Justice, 70-year-old Stephen Schofield pleaded guilty to one count of failure to pay over taxes.
He operates two businesses, Schofield Concrete Forms in Stoneham and Schofields of Melrose, Inc. in Melrose, and from 2010 through 2020, he withheld federal and state employment taxes from his employees’ wages and then issued W-2 forms to the employees showing the taxes had been withheld. Schofield did not pay those taxes to the IRS, which is required by federal law, and resulted in a tax loss of approximately $1,051,000.
The charge of failure to pay taxes provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater.
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