SMITH COUNTY, Texas — A Tyler attorney has been sentenced to prison for federal employment tax violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.
John Bennett White IV, 61, pleaded guilty on Feb. 1, 2021, to failure to pay employment taxes and was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker.
“Although Mr. White withheld payroll taxes from his employees’ paychecks, he spent the money on himself rather than pay it forward to the government,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei. “Mr. White also concealed assets in the names of other people and altered the law firm’s books to hide his fraud, all to the detriment of his honest, tax-paying, fellow Americans.”
According to court documents and statements made in court, White was an attorney and firm manager for a Tyler law firm, J. Bennett White, P.C., where White had significant control over the finances of the firm and had a duty to account for and pay over the employment taxes on behalf of the firm’s employees to the IRS.
Between the second quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2015, White made sporadic and partial efforts to pay his firm’s employment tax liabilities. For multiple quarters during the same period White caused employment taxes to be withheld from the law firm’s employees’ wages, but willfully failed to fully pay those trust fund taxes of to the IRS. White filed Forms 941 reporting the law firm’s employment taxes for each of these quarters. White paid the full amount owed the IRS for 24 of those 38 quarters. White made partial payments on 10 occasions and no payment for seven quarters. In total, White caused a tax loss of over $300,000. Instead of paying employment taxes, White paid other creditors and his own personal expenses.
This case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Locker.
