Haas to plead guilty in tax plot, will serve prison time
Quote selected text Published August 25th, 2007 in NASCAR News
NASCAR team owner Gene Haas agreed to plead guilty to Federal conspiracy charges Friday and will serve at least two years in prison.
Haas owner of the No. 66 ands No. 70 Nextel Cup Series cars was indicted in 2006 by the Internal Revenue Service who charged the 55-year-old Californian with trying to cheat the government out of nearly $35 million in taxes.
At the time of his arrest in June 2006, Haas issued a statement through his company Haas Automation insisting he was innocent of the charges and that the charges “revolved around” the company’s former CFO. He also pled ‘not guilty’ to the charges.
Haas was referring to John Phillips, the former chief financial officer of Haas Automation. Haas had accused Phillips of cheating the company out of nearly $28 million in the same transactions listed in the IRS indictment. Haas Automation won a default judgment against Phillips, who then went to the FBI and exposed the tax schemes.
Phillips was named as a co-conspirator in the case but was never charged with any crime.
According to the IRS indictment Haas and three of his associates created fake invoices in order to create bogus tax deductions.
The IRS said that Haas conspired with the others to create the fake invoices to his own company, a land title company, his NASCAR teams and even a bogus company set up just for the scheme.
More at CupScene.com
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The governement didn’t need the money anyway
What’s 35 million?
Oh my, 35million, pennies these days in the way the gov throws money around. But when they think it’s theirs and they want it someone has to do the time………….
What a crook and just legal system we have…………………….
Too bad Johnnie Cochran died. He’d of had the government paying Haas because he’s a victim. The government created the situation and now this poor soul has to pay and it’s not his fault. I’m sure that’s the way Johnnie would’ve done it. Haas got screwed!!!