ALPINE On Tuesday, a former Monahans businessman was ordered to pay $1.3 million in restitution for failure to pay withholding taxes, a Department of Justice press release detailed.
According to court documents, George Wayne Johnson, 74, of Lawrenceburg, Tenn., was the owner of Wayne’s Welding Services in Monahans. From 2015 to 2018, WWS withheld tax payments from its employees’ paychecks but failed to pay $1,308,797 in required payroll tax to the Internal Revenue Service. Through his company, Johnson spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his salary and personal expenses.
In addition to the restitution ordered, Johnson was sentenced to five years of probation.
“Employers have critical tax obligations with respect to their businesses and the defendant in this case skirted them so that he could enrich himself,” U.S. Attorney Ashley C. Hoff stated in the press release. “We will continue to work closely with IRS Criminal Investigations to prosecute these matters.”
“This is an appalling act, not just because he stole more than a million dollars from our nation, but because he expected his own employees to pay the price for his extravagant lifestyle,” Ramsey E. Covington, Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation’s Houston Field Office, stated in the press release. “I am proud of our team at IRS CI for the investigative work on this case and I am proud of the unwavering support of the U.S. Attorney’s Office to prosecute those who choose to violate our tax laws.”
The IRS investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lance Kennedy prosecuted the case.
