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A New Hampshire businessman will serve time in federal prison after pleading guilty to failing to pay nearly $15 million in taxes owed to the IRS, the U.S. Attorney said Friday.
Andrew Park, 49, of Bedford, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty to 30 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release, Acting U.S. Attorney Jay McCormack said in a statement.
McCafferty ordered Park to pay $639,821.78 in restitution, the amount of tax and interest not repaid at the time of sentencing, to the United States. She also ordered Park pay a fine of $15,000.
In July 2024, Park pleaded guilty to willful failure to pay over payroll taxes and willful failure to file a tax return.
Park was the CEO for CarNow, a tech company that serves car dealerships, from its founding until 2023, The Boston Globe earlier reported.
In that role, prosecutors said, Park was responsible for “all financial matters.”
This included filing the company’s quarterly payroll tax returns; collecting and paying over Social Security, Medicare and income taxes withheld from the employees’ wages to the IRS; and matching Social Security and Medicare taxes the company owed.
Park was also responsible for collecting and paying over state and local taxes.
Prosecutors said from the company’s founding in 2014 through the third quarter of 2021, Park withheld federal, state and local taxes from the wages of the company’s employees -- but he did not pay them over to the IRS and state and local tax authorities as required by law.
He also did not pay over the payroll taxes that the company owed, despite a payroll service company that he hired to process the employees’ payroll notifying him “hundreds of times” that the taxes were due, prosecutors said.
Four company employees complained that the Social Security Administration reported no withholdings had been paid over by the company on their behalf.
From 2013 through 2020, Park did not file individual tax returns as required by law, despite paying himself a salary of approximately $250,000 each year.
In total, Park caused a tax loss to the IRS exceeding $14.7 million.
“For many years, the defendant took elaborate steps to defraud the IRS by not filing or paying his personal income taxes and by using his employees’ payroll taxes as free capital to grow his business. Then, when matters got out of hand, he falsely told his investors that his company was tax compliant to secure the funds to try to make the problem disappear,” McCormack said.
“The substantial sentence imposed by the court reflects the seriousness of the defendant’s conduct and his disregard for our nation’s tax laws and sends a message to deter other would-be tax fraudsters who might seek to enrich themselves at the expense of honest taxpayers,” McCormack said.
Thomas Demeo, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Boston Field Office, said in a statement that Park’s sentencing “is a strong reminder that payment of individual and business taxes is an obligation, not a choice.”
“When Andrew Park made the decision not to pay taxes for himself and his business, he also made the decision to cheat his employees and other honest taxpayers,” Demeo said. “Investigations of employment tax fraud is a priority for Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation as our system of taxation depends on everybody paying their fair share.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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